


Hidden Histories

by WaterMonkey



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Monks, Alternate Universe - Powers, Creative liberties were taken with EXO powers, Everybody is a god, F/M, MAMA Era, OT12 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-06-15 09:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 54,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15410115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaterMonkey/pseuds/WaterMonkey
Summary: In a time when Gods ruled from their mountains, and choose servants in a ritualistic ceremony- one girl’s world is turned upside down when she is picked to serve the God of Ice on his mountain. Freezing temperatures and a hot head start her journey on a difficult path.Little does she know that things are only about to get more complicated when the fourth god in a line of twelve goes missing, and she might be the secret in defeating what, or who, is causing them to disappear.





	1. Chapter 1

_When they asked me how I wanted to die, I told them to throw me into the mouth of the volcano. At least that way, there wouldn't be a whole lot of time for me to contemplate how I betrayed my god. I wouldn't have to live with it on my conscience while I wasted away my blessed eternity_.

* * *

 

It all started the winter I turned 20, the year all would be keepers were assigned to their mountains. There were twelve sacred peaks in the Elyxion Range, twelve temples that I could be assigned to by the abbots. Each temple acted as a focal point for spiritual energy in the world. There were six elemental temples: the fire temple, the water, the earth, the lightning, the ice, and the wind. Then there were the non-elemental temples: the light temple, the healing temple, and the astral temple. There used to be others, but they had long since gone dark. It was the job of the abbots and the keepers to stop that from happening to the others.

The Hemic, the choosing ceremony, was held once a year, and I'd been waiting for it my whole life. I'd lived in the monastery of the abbots for as long as I can remember, preparing for a life of servitude to the gods who ruled the temples. They were benevolent creators, loving even. My direct teacher served under the Light God Baekhyun, and the stories she told would bring a smile to anyone's face. Each deity had their own unique qualities that made them worthy of being served, and I had my hopes up for one or two. Ever since I was a little girl, my abbot always said there was fire in my veins. I was sparky, I was spunky, and I took no disrespect from anyone. I was the best fighter in the training temple, and I knew more sonnets than any of the other keepers. The gods translated their desires in the form of sonnets, holy songs, and passed them down to the abbots to disperse to the community. So far, there were 107 sonnets.

That being said, I had my sights set on the Fire temple, serving under the blazing god, Chanyeol. His stories were always exciting and adventurous. I wanted to be a part of the temple that warmed the core of the world! What a thrill it would be! Kyulkyung, however, had dreams of becoming the next priestess of the healing temple.

"Yixing is just so pure." She would sigh sweetly at night, dreamy-eyed and half asleep. It was like that with every keeper. We all favored the god that fit our personality, even when the abbots warned us that our desires would have nothing to do with it. The Hemic had a way of seeing the true color of our souls, they said. Plus, there were only so many spots per temple. The fire and light temples had the most keepers, while the ice and healing temples only took one or two a year. That didn't stop us from pretending we would get everything we wished for, though.

The night of the Hemic, I sat beside Kyulkyung, knee bouncing in dire anticipation. She reached over and grabbed my leg.

"You're shaking the whole bench." She said a small smile on her lips. She was as anxious as I was. We sat in the main gathering chamber on benches that circled the center, where a giant cauldron sat ready to accept our offerings. The abbots passed out the favors, small wafer-like crackers that were said to cleanse our bodies and prepare us for the ritual. I stuffed mine in my mouth so fast, I hardly remember eating it. Then we sang the sonnets, a chorus of melodies and harmonies that always made my chest swell. And then finally, it was time.

"I look around and I see a generation of the finest keepers. You will uphold your oaths well, serve your gods with pride. I am honored to have been there to prepare you." The head abbot said to us, and we all looked at each other stately, satisfied with being spoken of so highly. And then she started to call on us, one by one. The ceremony was a private affair, held in congress with the entire temple. You stepped up to the empty cauldron opposite the abbot. She would then hold out to you the Blade of Moirai. You take the blade in your hands and pledge your fealty to the gods. When you were ready, the abbot would slice the sword out of your hands. The blood that soaked your fingers would be the color of the temple where your soul belonged. Some skeptics said it was all a hoax, that the wafers are what turned you colors, not your soul. But I chose to believe that I was meant for the fire temple, and my blood would be a beautiful crimson regardless of the influence.

When Kyulkyung's name was called, she grabbed my hand and squeezed it tight. As she stepped up to the altar, I clasped my hands together and prayed for her to go to the temple of healing, just as I'm sure she was chanting it to herself. She stretched her palm out over the cauldron and took the Blade of Moirai. She grasped it firmly, and her face pinched at the sudden pain. I sat frozen on the bench, barely breathing as she slowly opened her fingers and looked for the evidence. I couldn't see the color from where I was, but I could see her whole posture sag in relief. The abbot came around and lifted Kyulkyung's hand in the air: a blush pink creeping its way out of the gash in her hand.

She'd been chosen for the healing temple. I jumped to my feet in applause with everyone else as she came to sit back down. She held the wrist of her bleeding hand, still staring at it, transfixed on the color that bled from her soul.

"You did it!" I exclaimed quietly as the next keeper was called. She looked up at me, doe-eyed, and I grabbed her head and kissed it while she recovered from her shock, and waited for my turn.

A few keepers later, a name was called that I didn't remember. A boy named Minseok stood from the back and headed towards the cauldron. I watched him suspiciously. I knew everyone at the monastery, but I didn't recognize his sharp eyes or slender frame. Glancing around the room, I realized that there were more than a few faces I didn't know. Where did these guys come from?

Minseok took the blade carefully, and when the abbot pulled it back, he winced. In his palm formed a puddle of robin's egg blue, the sign of the ice temple. Everyone clapped, but in my heart, I felt bad for him. The Ice temple wasn't exactly known for doing a whole lot. Its god, Xiumin, was known for being a bit of a shut-in, and too calm for my nerves. But as long as Minseok was fine with it, good for him.

A few more people went before it was my turn, and when my name was called, I nearly panicked. Kyulkyung patted my arm reassuringly before I was able to stand and go to the altar. The abbot eyed me piously, knowing my sole desire was to go to the fire temple. She extended the blade and I grabbed it clumsily. My hands were so clammy I wasn't sure the sword was going to be able to cut me, and it only got worse as I recited my oath to the gods.

"Do you swear to serve your god to the utmost of your ability, and pledge your fealty and assistance for as long as you live?"

"I do," I swore, and with no warning, she pulled the sword through the flesh of my palm. I gasped at the brightness of the pain, but it was secondary to the fear in my gut as I stared at my clenched fist. I wasn't prepared for such doubt, but the abbot calmly took my fist in her hands and eased my fingers open.

Brilliant robin's egg blue filled my vision, and I couldn't understand why. Where was the red? Where was the fire that was supposed to be there? I looked up at the abbot in pure horror as she raised my hand for all to see. The crowd clapped politely, but everyone knew I had been gunning for the fire temple. Everyone knew that my deepest desires hadn't been met, that my soul had apparently betrayed me. They clapped none the less, but I saw Kyulkyung in the audience, her blessed pink hand covering her mouth, tears falling from her eyes. She'd gotten her dream, and I felt like I'd been banished. The abbot quietly ushered me back to my seat, and I went there numbly.

"It's okay. It's okay." Kyulkyung cooed as she cried, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. I wasn't sure if she was the one shaking, or if I was. Maybe it was all that ice in my soul, the core that my heart of fire apparently hadn't been able to melt.

My bed felt particularly cold that night, and I wallowed in the irony of it. Kyulkyung called my name from the top bunk, but I hid under my pillow.

"I'm coming down." She whispered, and I felt the frame shift as she descended the ladder, and my small mattress dipped as she shimmied in. "You're still shivering." She sighed as she gathered up my hands in her own. The edges of her bandage brushed against my fingertips, and I swallowed down the overwhelming wave of jealousy that came over me.

"At least it wasn't, you know...the astral temple." She tried to comfort me, but I let out a bitter laugh. "And it's not like you're stuck there for eternity." She reasoned, holding me tightly. "Your temple's keepers are the only ones that are allowed to move freely through the range. You can come visit me whenever you want."

"Why do you think that is?" I asked crossly. "Maybe it’s because they know how miserable the keepers are there, cooped up in that temple. They feel bad and blessed them with a small reprieve. I'm like a bloody free-range chicken."

"You are not a chicken." She soothed, smoothing down my hair and letting me squeeze the life out of her hand. "You're much more of a goat." I shoved her hard, but much to my displeasure she didn't completely fall out of bed. "Oh calm down," she laughed, weaseling up to my side again, "and please try to make the best of it." Her words turned serious and I swallowed down the lump in my throat. "This is the life we picked. The abbots always told us our desires had nothing to do with it, and we chose not to listen."

"You got what you wanted though," I said pitifully.

"And maybe you got what you needed. Who knows? The gods work in mysterious ways." She hugged me hard, and I decided to relent.

There was no use fighting the inevitable. I'd sworn an oath, one not easily broken, and I'd prepared my whole life for this. I would make due.

And, I figured, if I had to, I could find a way to the fire temple. There had to be a loophole somewhere that I could blast my way through. So I curled up with my healer friend and shut my eyes. Her body heat would do well enough for us both.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, we were sorted into caravans that would take us to our mountains. I eyed the massive ensemble of fire temple keepers sourly but went to take my place by the abbots wearing Robin's egg blue. The boy whose name I didn't recognize was there, gripping the straps of his backpack, flapping his elbows boredly.

"Hey." I greeted, and he turned to me sharply.

"Hey!" He nearly shouted at me, and I took a step back in surprise. "You came!"

"What? Of course, I came." I snapped. "I took an oath."

"But everyone knew you wanted that oath to go to Chanyeol." He said brightly. Did he realize he was rubbing it in or was he as oblivious as he looked?

"And that meant I was going to what? Run away? Please." I huffed, waving away his assumption, not about to let this nobody think I wasn't going to rise to the challenge. "What about you?" I struck back. "Who the hell even are you? We've never met before." He took my redirect with a slow grin.

"I'm Minseok."

"I know that." I barked. "I want to know why I don't know you."

"I'm from a different generation." He said, and I gave him a look of alarm. Keepers who don't go through the Hemic with their generation, those who are essentially 'held back', are almost always deemed unfit for service. This was my life now! I was stuck with a flunky and a shut-in god! One of the abbots must have seen my face because they came to ask if I was alright. I told him I was fine, that I was just...cold, and he gave me a knowing nod.

The caravan set off with just the five of us: Minseok and I, plus the three Ice Temple abbots that came to fetch us. Our mountain was the furthest away, at the northmost end of the range, and even though the abbots knew the way by heart, it still took almost three days. Three days of mind-numbing walking, listening to Minseok go on and on about our god Xiumin, and three days that grew consistently and frighteningly more chilly.

I pulled the shawl the abbot gave me tightly around my shoulders and trembled. We sat beside a campfire that I wanted to throw myself over and grilled a rabbit that one of the keepers caught.

"Are you still cold?" Minseok asked, and I rolled my eyes.

"Noooo, I just shake for fun." I clapped back sarcastically. He'd grown accustomed to my thinly veiled rudeness over the last few days and just shook his head. Without a word, he shrugged out of his own blanket and came to drape it over me. I hated that he was so nice all the time. It made me feel guilty for calling him a flunky all day in my head.

"But...won't you be cold?" I asked with a little less venom.

"Nope!" He cheered, pulling up his sleeve to show me his pale (muscular) arm. "I've got ice in my veins! You've just got too much fire in yours."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," I mumbled as I stoked the flames of the grill, secretly pulling the blanket closer to me. It still smelled like him, like evergreen and winter, and it was warm from his body.

"On the contrary," He smiled as he cared for the cooking rabbit, "it might be the only thing to keep you alive in the ice temple."

Just as I was going to ask him what he meant by that, the other abbots returned from foraging, and I didn't want to bring it up with them around.

The next morning, we made it to the peak. I'm not sure what I had been expecting, but it certainly wasn't the absolute ruin that the ice temple was.

"Home sweet home." Minseok winked at me, and I moaned. Where all his false optimism came from, I didn't know, but I was in need of some right then.

The temple was chiseled into the belly of the mountain, ornate stonework coated in a thick layer of ice decorating the entrance. On either side, great stone pillars carved into the shape of bears snarling at all those who dare enter. The abbots led Minseok and me through the entrance into a cave that served as the antechamber.

"Look, it echoes...hello!" Minseok cupped his mouth with his hands and shouted into the space of the cavern. The sound bounced back at us a dozen times, and I thought for a bone-chilling second what it would be like to have 12 Minseok's around. I wanted to run for the hills.

"Let's just focus on meeting our god, shall we?" I muttered and brushed past him.

"What do you know about him?" Minseok asked, quickly catching up.

"Only what you've told me, and that he's a shut-in." I shrugged as we followed the abbots further into the mountain.

"A shut-in?" Minseok scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Hardly."

"Have you met him?" I grabbed his elbow to halt us. It was extremely taboo for a keeper in training to meet any of the gods before being assigned to a temple. Everything I knew about them was from the stories the older abbots told. Minseok's expression stalled like he'd been caught in something he hadn't meant to be.

"In a way." He finally answered, and quickly ran to catch up with the abbots.

"In what way!?" I roared and chased after him. The hallways of the temple were little better than mine shafts, chiseled from the innards of the mountain. The floor was dusty and covered in a thin layer of snow. It seemed I would never be warm again.

I caught Minseok at the mouth of the throne room...not knowing that's what it was. I threw my arm around his neck and put him in a headlock, grilling him for information with a mean nuggy. Almost immediately, I was grabbed by a hundred hands, Minseok was pulled from me, and I was forced to the ground on my belly. My face smashed into the snow, and I was so dazed that I didn't even have the sense to fight back.

"Release her, Jeno!" I think Minseok shouted, and the hand crushing my skull was suddenly gone. I scrambled back to my feet and found a dozen abbots dressed in robin's egg blue standing between Minseok and me.

"What is this? Some sort of crazy initiation?" I accused as I moved so no one was at my back. No one said anything, or even really looked at me. They were all poised towards the sharp-eyed, slender kid I'd put into a headlock. It wasn't lost on me how they were protecting him, but I just could not fathom what that meant. I mean, I watched him go through the Hemic with my own two eyes! Someone who is already an abbot isn't allowed to do it again! "What the hell is happening?" I hissed to Minseok, who seemed to deflate. His shoulders sagged, and he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"You really mucked it up this time, Jeno."

"Sorry, Master." One of the faces said.

Master...he called Minseok, Master. The world must have been spiraling out of control at that moment if Minseok was somehow...what if he was--

I turned sharply to take in the rest of the room, finally noticing the throne at the back of the dais. It was made of ice, formed up from the floor by a thousand years of chipping. It was not decorated or adorned with any beautiful calligraphy like you think the throne of a god would be. It was simple, and it was empty.

"Oh my god..." I hiccupped. Minseok's head popped out of the crowd, and he found it to be a convenient time to say,

"Yes?"

I lost my footing as the world started to tilt and ended up a pile in the snow. My fingertips were starting to turn blue, a nice robin's egg blue, and my brain wasn't working right. Minseok was--

"Nayeon, will you please take our newest keeper to the baths?" He said, and a moment later I felt strong hands on my shoulders, lifting me back to my feet and leading me out of the room.

His throne room.

Minseok was my god.

 

* * *

 

Nayeon was indeed strong, as she had no trouble practically carrying me down the hall. We went through many different entryways before she hauled me into a low lit cave with a rock ceiling, small holes of daylight bringing into focus the steam that wafted through the air. It was an underground hot spring I realized numbly.

"Come on, little spitfire. Let's get you out of your clothes." Nayeon hummed, and I felt her set me on my own two wobbly feet and go for the ties around my waist. In a panic, I stumbled away.

"No please," I begged, hugging the clothing around my shoulders. "I'm so cold. Please. I'll freeze to death."

"There's too much fire in your blood for that. Now come on, or you're going to lose all your toes." I was shivering too much to put up too much fight as she pulled me up again and stripped me. Instead of feeling the cold air I expected, the heat rising from the springs wrapped me in a humid embrace, and I managed to walk to the spring on my own two feet.

The first step in stung every inch of my skin. For a hot minute, I felt like I was being cooked alive, and I was totally fine with it. I couldn't get in fast enough, feel the cold weep away fast enough. I dunked my head under the water and relished the pins and needles of the heat.

When I came up for air, Nayeon was gone (not that I could even recall her face), and in her place was Minseok. I shrieked and threw myself to the other side of the spring, covering whatever parts of me he could see. He was crouching near the edge of the pool and at my ineffective try at modesty, he raised an eyebrow.

"That was a bit much, don't you think?"

"I'm-I'm-I'm naked! Look away!" I stuttered, but he didn't move.

"You really think I've never seen a woman's body before?" He said condescendingly like it was naïve of me to ask him to not look.

"Not mine!" I snapped back, but whatever ease I had grown used to with Minseok was erased with the knowledge that he was actually Xiumin.

"Fair point." He shrugged, "Alright, if you insist." He spun on his heels and sat with his back to me. "Better?"

"Y-Yes...master?" I added, not knowing what else to do.

"There's no need for that." He waved away the title. "That's not how we do things here."

"But Jeno..." I trailed off, remembering distinctly that the other keeper had called him Master.

"Jeno's a bit of a stickler when it comes to formality. It's part of his charm. But everyone here, you included, can just call me Minseok."

"But aren't you...Xiumin?" I pulled my knees up to my chest, recalling how bitterly mean I'd been to him the whole journey here. He must think me a terrible person, or worse yet, an incapable keeper.

"Xiumin is a title, bestowed upon the god of the Ice temple."

"I don't understand the difference..." I questioned.

"I'm just the most recent Xiumin in a long line of Xiumins’." He shot me a glance over his shoulder, and I flinched away from his eyes. Pressing my cheek into the rock of the pool, I tried to process what he was saying.

"But you're supposed to be..." I muttered, afraid of what truth he was going to dump on me next.

"I am a god." He clarified, and I was relieved that my entire life hadn't been a lie, "But just because gods never grow old, doesn't mean that they can't be killed."

"Xiumin died?" I asked, peeking at him.

"All Xiumin's die, as is our destiny." He said it very matter-of-factly, and I eased away from the wall.

"That means since you're Xiumin..."

"I don't have any plans to go just yet, but..." He paused, leaning back on his palms, "we do what we must to keep the world safe."

"But I don't understand," I considered as I took a tentative step towards him, "how do you kill a god?"

"Same way you kill mortals." He seemed to yawn. "With a weapon."

I swam up behind him, crouching in the hot spring while he spoke. The forearms that propped him up were strong and pale. I doubted he got to see the sun much, living on this miserable mountain.

"I'm sorry about...before," I muttered, hoping I could repair whatever damage I'd done.

"Why do you suppose I go through the Hemic every generation?" He asked.

"To scout out potential keepers?" I asked hopefully, but he laughed.

"Not quite. I go to see the hearts of those coming into my service."

"You must think mine's pretty cold." I shrank into the water up to my nose.

"Like I said at the camp: you're a fireball, and it will be your greatest asset here." He looked down at my pitiful head as I blew bubbles in the water. "But maybe try to have a little more tact about the things and people you don't like."

I wanted to tell him that it had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with my disappointment about not getting into the fire temple, but I still wasn't sure how to interact with my new ‘god’, so I stayed quiet. He took it as submission and stood.

"Stay in here a while, get your feet back under you. When you're ready, we'll show you what we're up against."

"Up against?" I asked. While I was perfectly content to follow his order and never get out of this spring, the way he said it was as if...we were at war or something.

"When you're ready." He said again, and then cheerfully walked out.


	3. Chapter 3

  
Nayeon appeared the next time I dunked my head underwater, holding a robin's egg blue robe. I wondered if I dunked my head a few more times, Minseok would come back, but alas, it was just me and the fantastically strong woman. She hastily dressed me and then led me to the barracks. It was another chiseled out room lined with a dozen or so beds. Both male and female keepers mozied about, sleeping, doing chores, training. I was used to living in the women's quarters at the monastery, but I'd never lived in the same room as a man before. I hugged my new robe closer to my chest and followed Nayeon obediently. Did she not think it was weird to sleep beside a man?

"This is your cot, the chest at the end is for any personals you brought, and the bathroom is through there." She pointed towards a dark hallway at the end of the room. I gulped as she pretty much abandoned me there, left to my own devices. Not isolated, but very much alone. All of my things from the journey had been deposited in the trunk, and after sorting through to make sure I hadn't lost anything, I took out the hairpin Kyulkyung had made for me when we were twelve. It was a piece of bone she'd carved and polished into the shape of an arrow.

‘Why an arrow?’ I'd asked her. I was best with the sword or pike. Archery was very low on my list of talents.

‘Arrows aren't just for shooting, you know.’ She'd lectured me. Trust sweet, gentle, Kyulkyung to be more sensible than I. ‘I want you to have something that will always point you down the right path.’

I clutched the arrow to my chest and curled up into a ball on my cot. I refused to cry anymore. I'd shed all my tears back at the monastery in the arms of my friend. At this point, there was nothing else I could do but brood and try to remind myself that there was fire in my veins.

There was fire in my veins, and I could melt this whole mountain if I wanted to.

The next morning, I followed the stream of keepers to the kitchens where I watched them prepare breakfast. My whole life they told me I'd be a servant. I would give my god my everything and I planned to do it gladly. I guess I knew I was biased towards the fire temple, but I didn't think it would swerve me so off course that I would taint my own reputation with another god.

I also didn't know that my teachers would be so wrong. Minseok stood behind the giant wooden bowl of scrambled eggs and stirred them with a whisk that had to be bigger than he was. The keepers were not serving him, he was serving them. They lined up with little clay bowls and he scooped them a portion, smiling a bright, gummy, smile and telling them good morning by name.

After breakfast, Minseok and the rest of the keepers led me to the throne room again. He hopped up to his bland chair, and the rest circled around the room, lazing on the edges. I alone stood in the middle as my god smiled down at me kindly.

"Did you sleep well?" He asked. If I was honest, not really, and I'd made a decision over eggs this morning to be brutally honest. He already knew I was capable of it, so why bother hiding it.

"No," I said.

"Oh?" He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Why not?"

"Because I'm perpetually cold, and in a place, I don't belong." Little whispers blossomed in the groups of keepers around the room, but I ignored them.

"Why are you so convinced you don't belong here?" Minseok asked, looking genuinely baffled.

"You, in particular, are the one who keeps saying I have fire in my veins. Wouldn't that imply I am destined for the fire temple?" I argued.

"Do you love Chanyeol that much?" He smirked, but it didn't meet his eyes.

"I don't...love him," I clarified, "but I met every qualification of the fire temple, and it's where I saw myself serving best."

"You wanted to go there because it sounded fun." He summarized, and it hit home. While I wanted to lie and say that wasn't the reason...the abbot had warned us not to choose our bias based on our personalities, and that's exactly what I'd done.

"Have you heard the conspiracies behind the Hemic wafers?" He asked, suddenly.

"Yes?" I answered, but also asked.

"Well, I'm here to tell you they're half true."

"Seriously!" I cried. Why was I finally assigned to a temple, the goal of my entire life, and I keep having to learn that everything I'd been trained for was lie!

"The wafer is in fact what colors your blood, but the selection is far from random."

"H-How?" I sputtered. "You just grab it from a big bowl! How is that--"

"You didn't grab it. It was handed to you." He interrupted me, to make a very clear point. Thinking back, the abbot who passed out the wafers had been meticulously slow and choosy. At the time I thought nothing of it. I'd been too nervous, too focused on getting into the temple of my choice.

"Those wafers are the ingenious creation of the gods to be able to pick and choose those who serve us."

"And you picked me?" I asked in disbelief. My face must have puckered up in distaste because Minseok laughed and hopped to his feet.

"Oh yes. Much to Chanyeol's dismay, you'll be happy to hear."

"But why?" Did this mean I'd been meant for the fire temple after all, but my destiny had been usurped?

"I keep telling you that you have fire in your veins, and you think that means you should go to Chanyeol. But tell me, when you look at the other keepers in this room, do they look like they have ice in their hearts?" He pointed to his army of keepers, and they all turned their eyes to me. Saying someone has an icy heart is essentially an insult. I didn't know these people, but none of them had been particularly mean or frosty.

"No..." I muttered because I didn't have the gall to lie.

"It is not your soul or personality that catches a god's eye. Hell, I stole Nayeon from the Earth temple." Minseok jumped off the dais and gestured to the woman who'd carried me around the mountain. "Her strength is paramount here. And Jeno," He pointed out the boy who'd slammed my face in the snow, "I took him from the Astral temple. He can quote every single sonnet forwards and backward, and still reminds me on a daily basis of what I'm doing wrong."

"You cracked an uneven number of eggs for breakfast this morning, Master. It's bad luck." The boy said seriously, not even a hint of a smile breaking through on his face.

"Fantastic," Minseok muttered offhandedly.

"Okay, okay." I waved my hands around like I could dispel the aires he was putting on. "Conspiracies, fine. Stealing candidates, sure. But why me?" This was something I absolutely had to know.

"For your fire," Minseok said it like it was obvious, and I suppose he'd been saying it the entire time.

"What use is it to you!" I cried. "We're in a mountain made of ice! This is an elemental temple! All we do is create and protect ice! How am I any good here?"

"Is that what you think we do?!" He blanched, taking four long strides up to me. "Protect and create? Gods, do you really think Jongdae of the lightning temple just follows storm clouds around the world and zaps his finger every so often?" I didn't know what I thought, but when he put it that way, it does seem pretty stupid. "The temples are the focal points, not the gods." He resolved.

"Then what good are you?" I asked before I could stop myself.

His brow arched in surprise. "You're sure brave this morning."

"I get snappy when my toes are cold." My face stayed blank, but on the inside, I was trying to strangle myself.

"The gods of the temples are tasked with saving the world, using the energy focused by the temples."

"You have powers. I knew that." I said. It was keeper 101. Minseok rubbed his chin for a moment, sizing me up as he stepped back up to his throne. After a moment, he spoke and switched topics again.

"Why do you think we have two temples dedicated to water?"

"What?" I muttered. "No, we don't..." But then I thought about it.

"One water temple and one ice temple? Why exactly does frozen water get its own special temple?" Minseok asked.

"I guess I never thought about it before," I admitted. It does seem redundant, but back at the monastery, I was taught never to question such things.

"It's because that's not the energy that's focused here."

"Then--"

"This place was dubbed the ice temple because it's made of ice, and frankly the first Xiumin wasn't very creative." Minseok shrugged.

"What's it's true name then?" I asked, perplexed.

"Tenebros Temple." He said, and another little hush rippled around the keepers.

"Tene..." I started to say, but it felt wrong on my tongue. That happened sometimes. Some things were just too sacred to be uttered, too steeped in mysticism for me to be able to pronounce.

"The temple of darkness, fire heart. It stands to reason, that if we have Baekhyun and a light temple, we should have it's opposite. There must always be balance." Minseok said lowly.

"Doesn't that make us evil?" I wondered out loud.

"Not unless you want to be." He chuckled.

"Are you giving me a choice?" I said it as more of a joke. Mind you, a bad joke, but Minseok shrugged.

"What I'm not doing is demanding your service. This temple is not for everyone, and even though I vie for the best keepers, some don't want to know the truth." I thought about the truths he'd already told me and wondered what more there could possibly be.

"I do."

"Are you so sure about that?" He asked. I got the strange sense that he'd had this conversation before. Maybe a hundred times before. Maybe with every keeper in this room when they were new.

"Yes," I vowed. Because I didn't want to be the new keeper who couldn't handle themselves.

"If I tell you, you'll never be able to go to the fire temple." My resolve stalled.

"There's...possibility of that?" I asked hopefully.

"If you can't handle it here, I'll send you wherever you want to go. Do you still want to know?" He looked at me earnestly, waiting for my decision. It seemed too good to be true. He was offering me exactly what I desired: a place in the fire temple, besides those who were just like me. But when I glanced at the other keepers in the room, I started to wonder...who was to say I wasn't like them?

"...can I think on it?" I asked hesitantly, and Minseok smiled like he'd been waiting for that answer.

"That would be wise."


	4. Chapter 4

  
After my morning interaction with Minseok, they allowed me free time to get my bearings in the mountain...should I need it. It was all up in the air until I made my decision. I wandered down the halls of the temple aimlessly, thinking maybe I'd find my purpose among the permafrosted rocks.

Before I realized it, I was lost. Somewhere in the belly of the mountain, I stumbled into a chamber that was not like the others. The walls and floor were smooth and rounded as if I'd stepped into a bubble. The wall was etched with the 12 crests of the temples, even the three that were gone. I ran my finger over the symbol for the fire temple, a strange sort of longing filling my stomach. It was the kind of feeling of missing something you never had, a sort of jealousy that wasn't greedy. There was a part of me, deep down, that knew that's where I was meant to be. But I'd been stolen. Minseok had said so himself. He plucked keepers from their destiny and threw them into...something else. The truth, as he put it. To be honest, I could barely contain my curiosity. I wanted to know what he was talking about, what sort of whatever we were up against. That was the kind of adventure I'd wanted from the fire temple. I just wasn't so sure I wanted it...with him.

My touch slid around the room, grazing each symbol. I wondered if all the gods were as 'new' as Minseok if they told their keepers the 'truth' as well. I wondered what sort of god Chanyeol would be in comparison to the ice god who made me breakfast. Would Chanyeol scramble eggs for me? Would he willingly look away when I asked him to? Would he give me his blanket when I was cold, or hike three days up a mountain to see who I really was?

This wasn't a decision I could make without seeing the other side first, so I decided to use my status as an ice temple keeper to go to the fire temple and see how they lived.

I eventually made my way back to a part of the mountain that I recognized and found Nayeon. I asked her if I could leave on my quest and she said it would be fine. I'd expected a little resistance, but she just shrugged like, 'do what you gotta do'. I left my belongings as a sign of good faith and ventured out the next morning. I decided to stop by the healing temple to see how Kyulkyung was doing in her dream home. It was a day hike from her temple to mine, and the whole time I hugged Minseok's blanket around my shoulders like my life depended on it.

 

 

 

Even one peak south, the temperature was noticeably warmer. By the time I found the healing temple, a beautiful pagoda structure bathed in Edgeworthia blooms, I'd tucked my (admittedly treasured) blanket into my pack. I was met at the entrance by a kind looking abbot in pink robes.

"Keeper, what can I do for you?" She asked sweetly.

"I'm here to see Kyulkyung," I told her. She smiled at me knowingly.

"I can see that you are new, so I will tell you: social visits are an abuse of your authority."

"Please abbot," I bit the inside of my cheek, "I'm having a crisis of faith."

"Alright my child." She gestured for me to pass and I entered.

The healing temple was rumored to be a hundred stories tall, a massive winding staircase spiraling around the inside, connecting all the floors. I stood at the bottom, staring up at the twisting steps until I heard my name in the unmistakable shriek of my friend. She bombarded me out of nowhere, and I caught her in my arms, spinning. We giggled together like little girls, and all of my troubles were forgotten. She took me to her room (which I was very jealous of) and showed me her new robes and the three dozen scrolls she was supposed to be studying.

“There’s just so much to learn.” She told me, dazed. “Everything about the body, how it works, what affects it. And then I have to memorize every species of herb that grows in the range. The whole range!” I grinned because she was grinning, even though it sounded difficult.

“Have you met Yixing?” I asked, and I saw something I’d never seen on her face before: dread.

“Uh..y-yeah, I mean...yes. Of course.” She stammered, and I gaped at her obvious try at lying. She never lied to me! Mainly because she was bad at it, and it never worked, but…The fact that she was trying made my stomach twist in knots. We knew that it might happen since we were bound to go to different temples, but...it broke my heart to watch her choose them over me.

“What’s he like?” I choked on the words, pretending not to notice her stutter. Did he make her breakfast? Did he try to keep her warm? Did he promise her freedom if she wanted it?

“He’s…” She came up short, not having had time to rehearse a story. “He’s…”

“Pure?” I offered, wanting to give her a way out. I owed it to her not to pry. But my gesture of love had the opposite effect as tears welled up in her eyes. I grabbed her hands in alarm. “What? What is it?” She said my name, and I bristled at the fear in it.

“He’s not here.” She whimpered. “They can’t find him. He’s gone.”

“What do you mean they can’t find him?” I hissed. “He’s a god!” I stopped short. Minseok had said that gods can be killed, just as easily as mortals. But did Kyulkyung know that? Did her abbots? Where the ice keepers really the only ones who knew the truth? Minseok was really the only one who told his keepers that he wasn’t invincible? Kyulkyung buried her face in my lap and cried as I smoothed back her long hair. I guess neither of us got what we wanted after all.

She made me promise not to say anything to anybody about her missing deity. I swore on my oath as a keeper and said my goodbye. As I stood outside the healing temple again, I couldn’t make my feet pick a direction. Do I go back to Minseok, or do I venture on to Chanyeol?

“You still seem conflicted, my child.” The same kind abbot from before met me once again at the entrance.

“I don’t know which path to choose,” I admitted, fiddling with the bone arrow in my hair. For all it’s good intentions, it hadn’t been of any help.

"What do the sonnets teach us?" She asked magnanimously. At that moment, I couldn't recall a single holy song to save my life. Even with all the words I'd memorized, none of them seemed to help me at all. When I didn't answer, she started to circle me slowly, reciting one of the oldest sonnets there was:

"Black and white, still north and south, the endless war scene, the despair of the sun split in half; I went round and round, and came back here to start again; I'm filled with errors, but as I learn, I can get stronger; The day we realize the sun is one, big, and great, all together, we'll go towards our future."

"The song of history." I named, and she nodded, still moving around me.  
"What do those words mean to you?" She asked. I repeated the sonnet over to myself, trying to fit them into my personal puzzle. "Instead of thinking too hard," She mused when I hadn't answered, "change the words to match your decision. Say it out loud."  
"...Red or blue, still ice or fire, the endless war scene, the despair of my soul split in half; I go round and round, and come back here to start again; I'm filled with terrors, but as I learn, I can get stronger; the day I realize my soul is one, big, and great, I...will go towards my future." I inserted the words swirling around my mind into the sonnet and found that they really did apply.  
"There now," The abbot stopped in front of me at last, having made her full rotation, "did that help?"  
It did actually. The day I learn that my soul is a whole and not parts, that it can be both ice and fire at the same time, that would be when I could move on. It was a wake-up call, one that told me there was no need for me to venture any further south. I'd said my vow to my god, and he'd served my breakfast. He was worth bowing to, and that was that. My opinion had no place in my oath. I would serve the god of ice with every bit of fire in my veins.  
I nodded hurriedly to the abbot, who only smiled and ventured back into the healing temple.  
"Oh, and abbot?" I called after her before she was gone. "Please tell Kyulkyung that I'll figure out what's going on. She doesn't have to worry." My words were vague, and I hoped they wouldn't get my friend in trouble, but maybe if I found out the truth that Minseok had promised, I could find Kyulkyung's missing god.

 

 

 

Nayeon watched forlornly as the Spitfire returned to the temple, hot on the heels of her own fanfare. She had the same walk as everyone else that had decided to stay, and Nayeon was not pleased about it. Minseok, on the other hand, was grinning from ear to ear.

"She came back." He mused, sitting on the edge of his carved out balcony, watching the girl climb the steps to the temple.  
"It's dangerous to have her here, for her and for us. You know that." Nayeon growled at her god. Sometimes (sometimes) it was hard to see him that way. He was too goofy, too friendly, too willing to scrub the floors like everyone else. He had to remind her on occasion that he could kill everyone in sight with the snap of his fingers. And even once he did, she would still think him a goof.  
"We need her. The time is coming when we won't have a choice." He told her, but he was still grinning, despite the grave nature of the conversation.

"Yeah, but when are you going to tell her that?" Nayeon grumbled, rolling her eyes. For all his preaching, he still used to be a man, and it was easy to tell when something caught his eye. "Why couldn't you have found a dude full of fire?" She said under her breath before taking her leave.

While Nayeon was growing up at the monastery, her only dream was to meet Kyungsoo, the earth god. The stories about him were conflicting: he was brooding, he was cute, he raged, he sat alone and read most days. She liked the dichotomy. When she was going through the Hemic, she hoped her blood would run royal purple...but it hadn't. That robin's egg blue that no one had seen in a generation stained the front of her robes, and for a long moment, she watched as her dreams of seeing the earth temple shattered. Her strength had been why Minseok considered her, but her clumsiness was what had said sealed her fate.

Her limbs felt too heavy most of the time like she was swinging around boulders (which she did on occasion). It was like gravity was playing a cruel trick on her because when she would compensate for her heavy arms or legs, she tended to break things. She told Minseok all of this to deter him. She wanted him to reconsider, send her to the earth temple so she could train it away, but he'd just smiled his impossible gummy smile.  
"But you're perfect." He said...and she'd served him ever since. It annoyed her though, that he was looking at that hellfire in the exact way she wished he would look at her. Nayeon had trained, and she had worked, and she had struggled. Now she was as graceful as a snow leopard and twice as deadly. Yet this dragon lady was getting the glances she deserved. With an infuriated huff, she decided that she would make out what kind of fighter this new girl was. It'd been a long time since she pummeled something, and she was itching to put her fist through that girl's pretty face.


	5. Chapter 5

"Spitfire." I jumped at Nayeon's voice. She stood right behind me as I packed away my belongings in my trunk. I scrambled to my feet and stood at attention, not sure what kind of position she held, but she was always at Minseok's side, so I assumed she was important. "It's time for training." She said rather darkly, and I raised an eyebrow.

"Would it be alright if I rested for a bit? I just got back from--" I started to explain I'd just climbed a freaking mountain, but she cut me off.

"Oh I'm sorry, are you tired? Too bad." She snapped, and spun on her heels, obviously expecting me to follow. Blindsided, but up for it cause I wasn't about to let her stomp on me, I followed her out of the barracks and down the winding passages of the temple. She set a fast pace but I kept up, and I think that made her even madder. It was anyone's guess why she was in such a bad mood, but if she thought she was going to take it out on me, she had another think coming. We ended in a giant cavern, a hundred feet high. The floor was lined with reed mats, and I figured this was where the keepers came to practice. Weapons racks were scattered around the room, and I eyed a sword that looked like it was made for my hands.

"Well grab it." Nayeon snapped, and I realized she'd caught me looking.  
"Aren't there practice blades?" I wondered out loud.  
"We don't have time for you to sit around and practice. Let's see what you're made of, fireball."  
"Practice makes perfect," I quipped as I grabbed the sword from the rack, "Lug head," I added under my breath.  
"What did you say?" She snapped, and to my displeasure, grabbed a pick hammer from a different rack. It was rudimentary, made of stones that somehow fit together just right. One side of the head was flat, while the other dipped to a sharp point.  
"That's your weapon?" I faked, "We use that to weed the garden."  
"I'm going to literally impale you." She growled and pointed her stone pick at me.  
"Well, that's better than figuratively impaling me." I snorted, and that was the last straw for her.

She charged, much faster than I would have given her credit for, bringing her pick down with furious might. I lept to the side to avoid being smashed and planned my attack. In my hand was a Pudao, a short two-handed blade made for slicing. Not that I actually wanted to do her any real damage, but she was the one who insisted on sharp weapons.  
Before she could pull her hoe out of the ground where it'd sunk, I jumped towards her and swiped at her chest. She sacrificed retrieving her weapon to avoid the attack, and I quickly put myself between the two. If I could fight her barehanded, I would win. But, just as my confidence was soaring, a rumble under my foot made me glance back at the pike. The round stones it was made out of began to shift, and before my very eyes, the whole pick came apart. But the stones didn't fall. No, they hovered on some unseen force and then shot at me like bullets. My body reacted before I could process what was happening, and I dodged without seeing where I was going, stumbling over the reed mat. On my knees I still gaped at the living rocks, thinking maybe Kyungsoo was here, the earth god, but he was nowhere to be found. Nayeon yelled, and I caught sight of her above me, coming down with her fist. I quickly rolled out of the way and scrambled to my feet. Her arm sank into the ground where I had just been, leaving a giant hole, and I distractedly wondered how I ever thought I could beat her barehanded.

She stood slowly and made sure I was watching as she put her hand out towards me like she wanted to help me up. Not that I would have taken it, but suddenly, those mysterious rocks flew to her hand and reformed into her pick. Those rocks that fit together just so, swiveled in their sockets, teasing me, and her fingers gripped them expertly.   
"How are you doing that?" I cried, but she just smirked and charged again. Severely spooked, instead of rolling out of the way, I rushed her as well. She was unbelievably strong, but she wasn't fast or agile. Even though she wasn't big, her strength looked like it outdid her reflexes. I wasn't as strong, but I was fast and acrobatic. So I charged her, and as she brought her hammer down again, I sidestepped it with one foot and then stepped on it with my other. I used her own arm as a stairway to her head where kneed her in the face. Her whole body jerked back and she lost her grip on the pike again, but I wasn't fooled this time. I lept from her shoulders into the air and poised my blade down into a finishing blow. Hopefully, she would avoid it but...meh.  
She rolled out of the way at the last second, and I came down hard on the tip of my blade. Sparks blinded my vision, and for a second...just a second, I thought my sword was on fire. The glimmer was gone in an instant, and I dropped the hilt. It wasn't uncommon for sparks to fly in combat, but this wasn't the same. This was like, a soft...silky flame, that danced up the blade, my arm, my heart, my head. It went straight through me, and I suddenly felt warmer than I had in days.  
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" I heard Nayeon run up to me, cursing frantically. Then her fist smashed into my face and I was falling, still not understanding what was going on.

Only gods were supposed to have powers.

 

 

 

Nayeon's feet were starting to hurt from standing so long, but she wasn't about to move. Xiumin was furious, and it was entirely with her. They stood outside the temple entrance, unmoved in the snow storm that was wailing against the mountains. The Spitfire was laying in a pile of snow that she was quickly turning into a puddle. It seemed like she could melt this whole temple, and she wasn't even conscious. Minseok knelt at her side, holding two fingers against her wrist to check her pulse. His face was turned down into a dark pout, and Nayeon knew better than to do anything rash.  
"Master..." She bowed her head, dusty snowflakes falling out of her hair as she did, "Shall I--"  
"What were you thinking?" He cut her off, and she bit her lip to hide the tremble. "You know fire keepers are dangerous. She could have killed you...or herself!"  
"I just--"  
"What happened to your compassion?" He asked, and finally looked up at her. His words stabbed her in the heart, so much so that she couldn't meet his eye. "The girl I picked knew what it was like to be bullied for being different. Where did that girl go?"  
"Minseok, please...let me--" She hiccupped, but he shook his head.  
"You've done enough. Call for Jeno, and then go meditate in the sphere until you understand what you've done." She did her best to suck in the tears that were threatening to spill as she reluctantly bowed to him again,  
"Yes, Master." Then she fled.

Minseok kept a vigilant eye on the fire keeper's pulse, the steady rise, and fall of her breaths, and the fading glow from right in the center of her chest. It was his fault this happened if he was honest. He knew Nayeon had a jealous streak in her, but he'd assumed she would be able to keep it in check. He also assumed she wouldn't be so dumb as to pick a fight with someone who was combustible. With an angry sigh, he ran his fingers through his hair as the tips were icing together. He wasn't really the god of ice, but he was still a god, and the freezing temperatures of the storm didn't bother him. Plus, they had to be out here, or she would have burned to death from the inside out. He checked her pulse again, this time on the side of her neck and felt the heat slowly seeping away. She opened her eyes a few minutes later, groggy and disoriented.  
"What happened?" She muttered, and then her whole body was racked with a forceful shiver. Her muscles became so tense that her fingers curled into fists, and her arms crossed over her chest, pulling her into the fetal position. Swiftly, Minseok scooped her up out of the puddle and carried her inside to the hot springs. She continued to jolt in his arms, and he cursed under his breath. He entirely skipped the part where she was supposed to be stripped first and just jumped in the pool fully clothed. She reacted just as fiercely to the heat as she did to the cold, and he clutched her tightly to his chest, just in case she started to seize.  
"Master!" Jeno rushed into the chamber, having seen his god run down the hall.  
"Send an owl to the healing temple! Get Yixing here now!" Minseok ordered, and Jeno quickly complied.

  
For a long moment, Minseok watched for any sign that she was going to survive. He fully understood the risks associated with bringing her here, he just didn't expect them to pop up so soon. After a long ten minutes, the blue in her fingertips and lips started to fade, and life seemed to come back to her. She opened her eyes, and this time, she managed to speak without convulsing.

"What happened?"  
"Nayeon knocked you out." He said with a fake smile, but her eyebrows scrunched together, and he saw that she didn't believe his false happy.  
"Why am I so...cold?" She shivered when she said it like the word itself gave her chills.  
"We're in the hot spring. You can't possibly be cold in here." He said a little baffled.  
"We are?" She looked around like she hadn't noticed the warm bath, or how the water lapped between them. "Why are we in here?"  
"Well...because you...you were--" He tripped over his words.  
"Can you please just tell me the truth now? I'm too tired to listen to bullshit. Even from my god." She yawned, letting her head fall against his chest.  
“I’m your god now, am I?” He chuckled.  
“I came back, didn’t I?” She mused, and he rolled his eyes above her head.  
“You didn’t even make it to the fire temple.”  
“I didn’t have to.” Her voice went soft, and Minseok pursed his lips.  
“What made you change your mind?”  
“You promised me the truth.” She answered simply.  
“Are you sure you want to know?” He was kind of hoping she would say 'no' but knew there was zero chance of it.  
“I think we’re a bit past that, don’t you?” She rolled her head to the side to look up at him. Her brows here throwing shade, and all he could do was scoff. She really was a brave little thing.  
“I guess so. What would you like to know?” Minseok figured that would be the easiest way to answer all her questions, instead of him monologuing for the next week. She thought about it for a moment, safely tucked against his chest. He wondered if she was going to realize it and squeal like she had the last time. He could clearly see the curves of her under her wet robes, but apparently, it wasn't the same.  
“I guess, first," she glanced up and caught him looking at those curves, "why are we in the hot spring?”  
“Because you were dying.” He answered quickly, although it was funny that being caught actually flustered him.  
“Nayeon is not that strong.” She scoffed with an eye roll, and to his delight, he noticed that her ears were turning red. A good sign that she was heating back up normally. Or blushing.  
“Well, she is," He clarified, "but she didn’t do it. This is on me...more or less.”  
“Explain, and quit beating around the bush.” She smacked him in the chest weakly, and he admired her candor. She didn't have any trouble telling her god what to do. So he told her:  
“In Tenebros temple, keepers can manipulate the elements like gods. But it’s more of a curse than a blessing. With training, they here can transfer their spiritual energy to their weapons. Nayeon was destined for the earth temple before I intervened, therefore she can manipulate stone and is as strong as a giant.”  
“So the spark I saw…” She trailed off, letting him continue.  
“Yes. I wasn’t expecting it to happen to you so quickly, but I don’t have much experience with fire keepers.”  
“The last thing I remember is Nayeon panicking. Why?” She squinted at the memory.  
“Because unbenounced to you, you lit yourself on fire.” He said it matter-of-factly, hoping that maybe they could glance right over it, but she looked up at him with big doe eyes.  
“I did what?!” She cried, and he couldn't help but laugh at her reaction.  
“Your spiritual energy took the form of flames and engulfed you. Since it’s a part of you, it didn’t hurt you, but it could have hurt others. Luckily, Nayeon was quick enough to get to you before you exploded.” It was about the only thing she did right in the whole scenario, and Minseok should credit her for that, at least. Even though this was her fault. Spitfire went quiet for a moment, processing the information before she asked in a very small voice,  
“Am I going to explode?”  
“I don't think so." Minseok shrugged, "Do you feel like you are?”  
“I feel...drained.” It was true, she was having trouble keeping her head up, and had been content to let him prop her.  
“That’s because you used way too much spiritual energy in one attack. Listen, the reason this place is so dangerous for fire keepers is that the more energy you put into your weapon and attacks, the less you have for yourself. You only have a finite amount of fire, and it rebuilds slowly. It’s why you’re cold, even in the bath. I hate to tell you this but...you’ll probably never be warm again. And…” He bit his tongue, not entirely sure if he needed to add the next detail.  
“And?” She pressed.  
“And...it’s probably gonna be how you die. You’re going to freeze to death.”  
“That’s the absolute worst death I can think of.” She sputtered.  
“How would you rather die?” He chuckled, wondering how much thought she'd actually put into it.  
“Warm! Hot! Throw me in a volcano or something!” She flailed her arms, and he grinned as she splashed them both.  
“Fair enough!" He cried and tried to control her arms, "Fair enough, I’ll make you a deal: in three hundred years, I’ll take you to the fire temple and toss you into the caldera myself.”  
“In three hundred years?” She made a face and he giggled.  
“Like I said: in my temple, keepers are as good as gods.”  
“Then what’s the point of you?” She returned, and he remembered her asking him that already. What a little shrew.  
“Every army needs a general.” He shrugged but knew that was only going to bring up more questions.  
“Why do you need an army? What are we fighting?” She seemed exacerbated, and he wondered if he was still beating around the bush.  
“That’s...easier to show than tell.” He trailed off, but she would not be deterred.  
“Then lead the way!” She shoved against his chest, harder than he thought she was able, but not enough to break his hold on her.  
“I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day.” He mused.  
“But you promised--” She tried to throw his own words back at him but he shook his head.  
“And I will keep it, but first, let’s at least get you dry and fed. Then we’ll see about enlisting you.” She glanced around, like she'd forgotten that they were still in the hot spring, and let out a dramatic sigh, pouting as she said,  
“Fine.”  
“Are you able to stand?" He asked, and let her legs go to test their strength. It was easy to stand when the water holds all the weight, but she still swayed. Leaving her in the middle of the pool, Minseok jogged to the side and grabbed one of the little wooden stools they kept within arms reach. He brought it underwater and told her to sit on it, right where the water was warmest. "I’ll bring you as many spare skins as we have so you can make extra clothes, and I sent for Yixing to see if maybe he can make you a warming tonic or something.” Minseok explained. There had to be ways to manage her warmth. He reminded himself to go through the journals of the previous Xiumins and see if they'd recruited a fire keeper, and how they dealt with it.

At the name of the other god, she stopped sitting down and gaped at him.  
“You...sent for Yixing?”  
“Well, I mean, I sent him a message by owl. It’ll probably take a few hours to get there, and then back. He’ll probably be around tomorrow.” Minseok shrugged, but she was still staring, scrutinizing. "What?" He asked.  
“You...you don’t...do you?” She muttered, and he cocked his head at her.  
“I don’t what?”  
“You don’t know that he’s missing.” She said, and a moment went by before he fully understood what she'd said.  
“Missing?" Minseok stood to his full height in the pool, water dripping off every part of him. "What do you mean, missing?”  
She looked down at her toes through the water guiltily, but he was frantic. This was no time to be shy!

“I didn’t make it to the fire temple because I stopped at the healing temple to see a friend. She told me that Yixing had disappeared. His keepers can’t find him anywhere, but they don’t want to tell anyone for fear of what it could mean." And what it could mean of course is that one of the most important temples was about to go dark, just like the last three.  
“Listen to me," Minseok grabbed her shoulders and made her look at him, "this is very important: how long has he been gone?”  
“I have no idea. She didn’t give me the details, she was too busy bawling her face off.” She said, and he growled.  
“Shit. I have to go." He started for the steps that led out of the pool, his thoughts racing a million miles a minute.  
“To the healing temple? Take me with you.” She grabbed his hand, and he felt her drift along behind him, not even strong enough in the water to hold her ground.  
“No, you have to rest--”  
“The healing temple is the only place I’m going to get the warming tonic. And anyway, no one knows you’re Xiumin but us." Her argument was valid. He'd spent most of his tenure in the guise of another, if he went barging into another temple demanding things, no one would know who he was. "Kyulkyung and the abbots won’t talk to you without me.” She added, and he let out a groan.  
“Can you even stand?” He asked again, and she quickly made a show of planting her feet in the water. She swayed, but he assumed she was hoping he wouldn't see.  
“I vowed to serve. Let me.” She said, and it seemed there was nothing he could do to stop her.


	6. Chapter 6

Minseok received a letter from the healing temple during the evening meal. He told me we'd leave tomorrow at first light, and I assumed it was a ploy at giving me more time to recover. Jeno brought the little scroll to him with a bow, and Minseok quickly read it. His face only sat in a deeper frown, as he gave the scroll back. I guess my story had been confirmed, and he seemed even more worried now than when I first told him.

Once dinner was over, he grabbed my elbow on the way out. I wanted to snap at him, tell him that I wasn't stumbling, he was stumbling! But his face told me it wasn't the time for our now usual banter. He guided me down a different hall from the barracks and presented me with a small bedroom all to myself. It's wasn't spectacular: one side had a bed, the other side had a desk and a wardrobe, but in the middle, taking up the most space was a large fireplace.

"At least in here you can stay warm, and you won't smoke out the other keepers." He said. I sat on the little bed, if only to hide my shake and smiled at him.

"Thank you, master."

"You know you don't have to call me that." He said absently, running his hands over his face.

"Which, for some reason, makes me want to call you that." I snipped back. What sort of respect would I have for him if he required me to honor him? He didn't respond, he didn't even smile, and I bit my lip. "Whose room was this?" I changed the subject, hoping maybe I could get him comfortable enough to wipe that horrid expression from his eyes.

"It used to be reserved for the High Abbots when they would make their rounds to the temples once a year. But I read in the journals of the previous Xiumins that, three generations ago, this is where he let his fire keeper sleep. Hence the fireplace." He gestured to it absently. Wanting to catch his attention, I hobbled over and inspected it.

"I don't know how to start a fire." I lied.

"You could snap your fingers." He huffed, and I gave him a look.

"Minseok, what is your deal?" I finally asked. I get being worried, I get it's a god thing, but come on. When he didn't answer, I plopped back down on the bed and glared at his moping form. "How did you become a god anyway?"

"Unlucky I guess." He shrugged and sat in the little chair by the desk.

"No, really." I pressed. "How do you become a god?"

"Why?" He finally looked at me and I saw the hint of humor in his eyes, "Do you want to be the next Xiumin?"

"No!" I insisted, but I was smirking at the thought. I was already almost a god now anyway, right? I wonder what the difference was between me and him.

"Good, because you're out of luck at this point."

"Why?" I asked, pouting.

"Because new gods are chosen at the Hemic."

"Really? What color do they bleed?"

"They don't." He sighed, and I probed him for the rest of the story. "Fine, fine," He waved off my attack. "It was 183 years ago now." He smirked when I gawked at his age. He was 203! "I was going through the Hemic with my generation, and we were all excited. My only request to the gods was to end up in an elemental temple. I didn't have the brains for the astral temple, or anything like that."

I slipped down from the bed and crawled over to the fireplace. I wanted to light it because I was cold but also because I didn't want Minseok to sit in this cold dark room and think about all his friends that were long since dead. He watched me expertly kindle and light the flame, naturally of course, and raised an eyebrow at me when I beckoned him over.

"I thought you couldn't light a fire."

"Just get over here." I snapped, and he quietly sat down beside me in front of the growing stoke. It felt blessedly warm on my limbs that were chilling by the second in this otherwise dark room. The light it cast on his face made him look fierce, and much more mysterious than he actually was.

He continued his story.

"When the abbot called my name I was a nervous wreck. I could barely look her in the eye. And when she pulled the sword out of my hands, I..." He trailed off for a moment like he was trying to remember. "It's didn't hurt, not really. I felt it, but it didn't feel right." He looked down at his hands. They were small and delicate looking, perfect to hold a blade and perfect to hold in my own. I banished that thought away quickly.

"What color?" I asked softly.

"No color. I didn't bleed. It's didn't cut me. It couldn't."

"But I saw you..." I questioned, "at my Hemic. You bled blue." He shot me a mischievous grin, and I realized he'd faked it. It earned him a smack on the shoulder for being such a tease. "I can't believe you made me think you were a flunkie."

"It served its purpose." He shrugged unapologetically. We fell into a bit of a lull, just enjoying the fire. His spirits seemed to have lifted somewhat, but I could still see the darkness behind his eyes as he stared at the flames.

"Minseok?" I whispered, and he glanced my way. "What's about to happen?" I asked, scarcely daring to hope that it could be avoided.

"Nothing good."

 

If anyone asked me, I would have told them it was the world that was so unsteady, not my legs. Surely not my legs. Ever since I was young, I had been the sturdy one. I was the best fighter, the strongest girl, the most eligible keeper. Now? I was forced to hold onto Nayeon's arm as we descended the temple steps. The one who punched me in the face was now my crutch, and she seemed as unhappy about it as I was. Minseok insisted on bringing her, and I was not allowed to object. We marched single file south, me in the middle, Nayeon at my back to keep me from falling, and arrived at the healing temple by early evening. As I climbed the last steps (nearly on my hands and knees, mind you) I heard someone shout my name, and I saw Kyulkyung tumble out of the pagoda entrance in front of a line of abbots come to greet us. I was suddenly filled with fire as I jumped to my feet and flung myself past Minseok and into her waiting arms.

"Have you lost your senses?" She cried as she hugged me, "Why didn't you tell me you were ill when you were here last?" She pushed me out and grabbed my face in her hands, inspecting my eyes, my nose, my ears, conducting a thorough clinical exam in the courtyard. The head abbot cleared her throat, and Kyulkyung remembered where we were. She smiled apologetically, but I knew better. She was itching for my insides, which never ended well for me.

The abbots led us into the Pagoda and up one of the magnificent sets of stairs that I'd only gotten to admire from afar last time. It seemed as we ascended, that different parts of the temple unfolded before us, like a kaleidoscope turning in the sun.

"Don't worry," Kyulkyung hooked her arm in mine, which was welcome because my head was spinning, "it takes some getting used to." We spiraled up to a platform that stretched into a long hallway. A hallway that didn’t match the architecture of the pagoda on the outside. At the end was an ornately carved door, etched with Chrysanthemum blooms. "This is the head abbot's office. He'll be able to make the tonic for you." My friend told me.

"We are thankful for your abbot's offer, but our master specifically told us to seek help from Yixing." Minseok finally spoke, and I nibbled at my bottom lip, shooting him worried glances. What good would come from outing their secret? Especially if we weren't going to tell them ours?

"Right this way, young keeper." The abbot bowed and gestured Minseok back to the stairs. But Kyulkyung was pulling me towards the door. They were separating us. Nayeon, of course, went with her god as he turned on his heels, not giving me another glance. I couldn't help but stare at his back as he disappeared.

What a jerk.

The office of the head abbot was plush and comforting. Thick rugs stacked on top of one another littered the floor, adorned with low tables arranged with clay pots of herbs, glass tubes of liquid, and books. So many books. The walls were built in bookshelves packed with volume after volume, some faded, some new. And at the back, a large cherry wood desk, carved with those same Chrysanthemum flowers. A gentle old man sat behind it, absently measuring out spices onto a golden scale.

"Abbot," Kyulkyung called, but he didn't look up. She gave me an embarrassed glance before calling to him again, louder. "Abbot!"

He jumped in his chair like we'd magically appeared. "The ice keeper." She introduced and gestured to me.

"Oh yes!" He stood slowly and grabbed a wooden cane. Hobbling around to the desk, I could see the wear and tear of age in his every move. He wore brilliant spectacles, round and made of gold, and when I looked at his face through them, it made him seem bug-eyed.

"Abbot." I bowed respectfully as he came to study me with those big apple sized eyes.

"So you're the one whose core is freezing, eh? I must say, the letter we received from your master was most unusual! Come, sit down so I may take a look at you." He tapped my shin with his cane to lead me to a small stool beside a crowded table.

My core was freezing? What sort of things had Minseok written in that letter?

The little old abbot put his cane aside as I sat, and took up some solid gold calipers. They were shiny and pointy and I leaned away when he tried to hold them up to my head. "Hold still little keeper. I must have an accurate measure of your mind." He placed both prongs on the sides of my head, measuring the size of my skull. He hummed as he worked, an odd patternless tune, as he measured out every little bit of me. The length of my pinky to my second knuckle, the girth of my neck, the length of my wrist to elbow, from thumb to nose. He even looped a piece of string between my legs and measured from my hips to the top of my head. If I hadn't known any better, I would say he was fitting me for new robes, not finding out anything medicinal. But I humored him, because Kyulkyung stood off to the side, utterly fascinated. Her eyes were almost as big as his as she watched him work.

Finally, when there couldn't be anything left to measure, he put his pointy calipers away and gestured for me to follow him to another table, where he started to doodle in a sketchbook.

"That was advanced Anthropometry!" Kyulkyung whispered excitedly in my ear, and I only rolled my eyes. We watched as he sketched out what looked to be a human body...that looked like me. An anatomically accurate sketch of my body. Suddenly, I felt self-conscious and wanted to bury my face in Kyulkyung's robes. After a few moments, the abbot held up his masterpiece for me to see and my ears burned red.

"Now," He announced, going to yet another table, "Let us begin." Much faster than I figured he was able, he started to snatch up jars and pots, pouring a little of their contents in a large mortar sitting on the floor at the end of the table. The natural herbs of the mountain, combined with more exotic things that I'd never be able to identify, were all tossed in the cauldron until he grabbed a small brick clay jar topped in cloth. With delicate hands, he peeled off the cloth and then stalled for a moment. He let out a big sigh before dumping the whole contents of the pot into the cauldron: three or four measly strands of a red root. He then held the pot out, and Kyulkyung quickly stepped forward to take it.

"Put it on the list." He sighed again.

"Yes, abbot."

 

Minseok and Nayeon followed after the other abbot dutifully, climbing higher and higher in the pagoda. He could have sworn at one point, as they went up, that a hallway they passed looked suspiciously like one of the back corridors in the ice temple, but he brushed it off. If Yixing had anything like that, Minseok would know. Still, the idea unsettled him. After what seemed like hours, they reached the top of the temple. Unlike the regal door of the head abbot, the door of the god was small and ordinary.

"This way please." The abbot opened and waved them to follow. The room was as plain as the entrance, with smooth walls and average accommodations. It was a bedroom, however, not an office, or den.

"Where is Yixing?" Minseok demanded.

"Our master has descended to treat your fellow keeper. You may wait here until his return." The abbot gracefully bowed out. They were trying to pass it off as two ships in the night. 'Yixing' went down as Minseok came up, and as soon as he got tired of waiting up here and go down, 'Yixing' would have gone back up. A clever trick in a dire situation. His only way out of the cycle would be to wait up here until it was impossible for them to avoid it. So he plopped himself down on the bed, tucking his hands behind his head.

"Master--" Nayeon stood by the door dutifully.

"Before you say anything, I would think again whether it's worth it." Minseok cut her off. He was still very much upset with her, but not so much so that he opted to bring Jeno instead of her on this mission. He fully understood why she'd done what she did, and she was truly sorry for it. Whether it was his anger or her actions she was sorry for...that was another matter.

"The abbots would die before they admit anything to us." She said through a pout.

"We just have to put ourselves in a position to catch them in their lie." He shrugged.

"Or you could tell them who you are, and we wouldn't have to go through this charade." She snapped back. He glanced at her, rooted by the door, refusing to come any further in. She was upset with him...for being upset with her. With an eye roll, he sat up and gave her an annoyed look.

"Why don't you go ahead and tell me why that's a terrible idea." Her face darkened considerably, and he spied the muscles in her forearm flex.

"Yixing already knows who you are. Why do you bother hiding--" she started off passionately, apparently ready to get it all off her chest.

"I hide because it's the smart thing to do." Minseok tried to be nonchalant, but by the way, she was leaning into her statements, this wasn't going to end easy going.

"Oh, just like taking her on was the 'smart thing to do'?" Nayeon snapped.

"She's already with us. Why are you still bothering to complain?" He'd never experienced this side of his keeper before. She wasn't usually so temperamental.

"Because she's...she's...a pain!" The girl cried and gestured to the door like the Spitfire was on the other side listening. "She will cause us nothing but pain, time and resources. She's not worth it!"

"Can you even hear yourself?" Minseok asked, barely believing what he was hearing. "You've got your head buried so far up your ass that you can't see the big picture anymore."

"The picture you promised me never included her!"

"I never promised you anything! I only told you the truth." He got to his feet because there was no way he was going to take whatever came next sitting down.

"Ohhh, then enlighten me, oh Xiumin." She used his name like a slander, and he stabbed her with an incredulous look. "What's the truth about her? Why is she so special that you're willing to risk everything?" This was the kind of jealousy that was ugly. The kind that hid in the dark because out in the light of day, it was gnarled and embarrassing. Minseok couldn't comprehend when it had taken root in his most loyal keeper so aggressively.

"Just get out." He said instead, not wanting to fight this battle right now.

"No, no you owe me an explanation--" She advanced on him, but that was the last straw.

"I don't owe you anything, keeper!" He roared, and she flinched back. "You swore an oath to obey me, remember? Not the other way around!" He hoped that would be the end of it, that she would go back to being her normal self...but she gritted her teeth, and he knew that she wasn't going to let this go. "You're done here. Return to Tenebros." He said and turned away, dismissing her with his back.

"I am not going to just leave you here unprotected with her!" She snarled, but he snapped back at her,

"And what good is a faithless servant for my protection? Hmm? Are you going to beat away someone else's sword while stabbing me in the back with your own?" His words cut her deep, and for a moment he saw her flashback to her normal self.

"No! Master, I--I would never--" She actually fell to her knees and bowed to him, trying to show her sincerity.

"Then why won't you trust me?" He growled. "How has your jealousy blinded you so quickly? We have been through battles together, you and I. And yet in the past week, you have challenged my authority on two separate occasions!"

"I-I don't--" She stuttered, her face to the ground. "I don't want to lose you to her!" He saw her squeeze her eyes tight, and her whole back tensed. It was a confession, one he knew he'd have to deal with eventually.

In his 200 years of life, he'd been told 'I love you' a million times. Usually, it was fealty, but on occasion it was romantic. Unfortunately for Nayeon, he wasn't flustered by her feelings and had had plenty of practice breaking the hearts of those he loved.

"Losing me would mean I was yours, to begin with." He taught softly now because there was no reason to be harsh. "I'm your god, Nayeon. I will never be yours. Or hers. Or anyone's."

"But..." She hiccuped, refusing to look up at him.

"Return to our temple and ready the other keepers for a range crossing. I have a feeling that things are about to get messy with the gods." He ordered, swallowing down his growing dread. "But--" She started to protest but he shook his head.

"I'm in a temple. No harm is going to befall me here."


	7. Chapter 7

After what felt like hours, the head abbot of the healing temple came back around to where Kyulkyung and I sat, twiddling our thumbs.

"Pardon the wait, ice keeper! You can't rush perfection." He grinned, hobbling back to us with a small clay pot in his hands. He gave it to me, and glancing down I saw three big round pills.

"How long are they good for?" I asked happily, expecting to only have to take one every few months. But Kyulkyung's expression told another story.

"Master," She took one of the pills from the pot and examined it, "these are one-time use. Xiumin specifically requested something more...long term."

"One-time use?" I balked and quickly looked back at the abbot. "And there's only three?"

With a sigh, the old abbot turned away and hobbled back to his desk.

"Unfortunately girls, the main ingredient for this type of medicine is very rare, and I have run out."

"The silversword?" Kyulkyung asked, and he nodded.

"Where can we get more?" I offered, willing to go to any length to be warm again.

"The fire temple." He sat heavily in his chair. "Those leaves were a gift from Chanyeol many years ago. I have not had many cases to use them."

"What about...900 years ago?" I asked hesitantly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The recipe, was it created 900 years ago? At the request of the ice temple?" The abbot looked from me to a bookshelf and back, before quickly getting up and searching.

"What are you asking?" Kyulkyung whispered to me.

"I've got a hunch," I whispered back.

"Your hunches are usually terrible." She muttered and I smacked her.

"Work with me here. Minseok said that 900 years ago, Xiumin took special precautions for his fire keeper. If this recipe was one, maybe we can find a substitute for the silversword." I explained, giving away more than I meant to.

"Wait, why did the ice god have a fire keeper?" She caught, and I sputtered. "What happened 900 years ago that he would need one?" She asked next, and I stilled. That was a fair question, one I hadn't thought to ask. Gods lived for a long long time, and in the grand scheme of things, I guess Xiumin was relatively young, only 200 years old. He did say that he put off finding a fire keeper for as long as he could, so what changed? And was it the same thing that happened 900 years ago?

"Ahah! Here it is!" The old abbot chimed as he climbed down a tall shelf ladder, carrying with him a tome that was nearly as big as he was. Kyulkyung and I quickly got up to help him down and move the thing to an empty space on the table. He sucked in a big breath and blew off a sheen of dust that coated the cover, revealing the name, 'Dissertatio medica inauguralis de tenebris'. The last word caught my eye, and I wondered if I'd accidentally just revealed our biggest secret.

"What does it say, Master?" Kyulkyung asked, but he glanced at her disapprovingly.

"Have you not been studying your dead languages?" He chided and she blushed. "This is a journal penned by Yixing himself, many many years ago." The abbot caressed the book lovingly, before opening the creaky spine and flipping through the worn pages. "And here is your recipe." He landed on an old page, scribbled with characters I couldn't read. Kyulkyung dragged her finger down the list of ingredients, muttering to herself.

"So silversword is acting as the main temperature elevating component."

"Very good." The abbot approved, watching her mind work.

"What if we substituted the silversword for other herbs that have a similar effect just weaker. If we combine them, I'm sure we can come up with a solution that has the same warming effect." They nodded to each other even though I wasn't entirely sure what was being said, and then went to work. I sat quietly in the corner while the concocted, picking at a stray string on the carpet. If this was going to take as long as it did last time, I might as well go see how Minseok and Nayeon were fairing.

"I'll be right back..." I said to the room, but it fell on deaf ears.

A nice keeper outside the office told me that to find my companions I had to climb the stairs and to keep climbing until I couldn't anymore. I didn't want to tell him that my limit was going to plateau by stair six, so I just thanked him and started the ascent. I braced against the wall as fully as I could and took it a step at a time, and when I finally looked up, the head abbot's office was far below me...but there was still a mountain of stairs ahead.

With a frustrated sigh, I kept going until I saw Nayeon come storming down the spiral towards me. It crossed my mind that she might just throw me over the railing to my death, but she passed me with hardly a glance.

"N-Nayeon?" I called to her. Maybe she didn't see me. And more importantly, why wasn't she with Minseok? She stopped, perched between two steps and turned back to me. "What happened?" I asked when I saw the pained look on her face. We were by no means friends, but we were both ice keepers. I should at least feel for my comrade.

"Be careful with that heart of yours, fireball." She said without a hint of malice and then continued down, leaving me thoroughly confused and worried that something could have happened to our god.

I doubled my efforts to climb and eventually made it to the very top of the Pagoda. I had to stop and catch my breath on more than one occasion, but with my heart beating strong, I was feeling warm again.

"Master?" I called as I opened the door. He sat on the windowsill, one knee propped up, his hands over his face.

"For the love of all that is holy, will you please not call me that?" He groaned, putting to bed my fear that anything had happened to him. He was as broody as ever.

"What'd you do to Nayeon?" I asked, coming into the room.

"I believe I broke her heart." She said with an honest sigh, dropping his hands to his lap.

"Mmm. Classy." I sat down on the bed and quenched my curiosity. I'd picked up on that vibe, that Nayeon might love her god a little too adamantly, but nothing in the ice temple was what I expected it to be, so I didn't read into it.

"Where are we with the warming tonic?" Minseok asked, and I followed him on his redirection.

"The head abbot made me three before he ran out of ingredients.” I held up the little box with the pills in it. “He and Kyulkyung are working on finding replacements for the recipe. It was getting weird, so I came to see what you were up to." I shrugged, trying not to think about the insatiable look I saw in Kyulkyung's eyes as she concocted the tonic. She had a bit of a dual personality. Soft and sweet Kyulkyung, and then the scary healer Kyulkyung who like to experiment on me when I was sleeping.

"You and she grew up together?" Minseok asked, and I nodded.

"We’ve been bunkmates for as long as I can remember."

"It must have been sad for you when she got into the healing temple."

"Not at all." I smiled. "She's wanted to be a healer since she could read the textbooks." Although, I sometimes thought the world would be safer if she'd gone to the astral temple instead, and wasn't allowed to experiment on anything.

"And you? How long have you wanted to be a firekeeper?" He asked.

"Since I fell into a lake when I was six," I admitted, and he looked at me curiously. "Some of the other kids and I were skating on the frozen lake by the monastery. I was being uncharacteristically rambunctious," I joked and to my relief, he grinned, "The ice cracked, and I fell in. Being at Tenebros reminds me a lot of that moment..." I paused, remembering the way the water had engulfed me, the cold slowly seeping into my bones. "Anyway," I cleared my throat and Minseok gave me an unreadable look, "they fished me out and tried to warm me up, but I was too little and the abbots were afraid I wasn't going to make it, so they called Chanyeol. He came to the monastery himself and he saved me. My abbots have been calling me a fireball ever since.”

"That explains a lot," Minseok mumbled to himself.

"But as my good friend once said: the gods work in mysterious ways. I figured the best way to serve Chanyeol would be to serve you." I offered, but he snorted,

"I'm honored."

"And cranky apparently." I quipped, and we both looked away with a scowl.

"Being a god is stressful. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise." He muttered and turned his attention to the fading sun outside the window.

"Well I don't know any other gods, so..." I tried to lighten the mood but he whisked away the fun of it.

"You know Chanyeol. And you'll know Yixing as soon as I find him." With his face to the sunset, I couldn't help but gaze at the angles of his eyes or take in the seriousness of his expression. He was stressed, and he wasn't carrying it well.

"Minseok, did Yixing go somewhere, or was he...taken somewhere?" I asked, trying to word it as carefully as possible.

"Yixing goes where he is needed, but...I've never known him not to return to his temple." He said with a sigh, leaning his head against the wall.

"Can whatever we're fighting kidnap a god?" I pressed.

"Why do you think three temples are dark?" His voice fell to a whisper, and a shiver when up my spine at his implication.

"So that's what we do? We protect the gods from--"

"Themselves--"

"Monsters--" We said the words at the same time, and these were things I didn't realize were synonymous. Minseok shook his head and let out a bitter laugh. He looked like a man who was tired of having to explain the same thing over and over again, but I wanted to remind him that he hadn’t told me anything yet.

"Everyone’s afraid of me, so I’m untouchable, But in the end, you can’t reject me. I’m your opposite, I’m a part of your existence. Accept me for who I am, Put away your fearful worries, Enjoy the pain that you’re able to endure, and Fall deeper inside of me." He sang the sonnet quietly, his voice breathy and melodic, lulling me to close my eyes.

"That sonnet is--"

"It's about the existence of the gods. About how we're monsters." My eyes snapped open, and I found him on his feet, staring out the window.

"You're not a monster." I tried to tell him, but he tensed all over. It didn’t seem like my words were the reason, though.

"You say that because you haven't seen anything yet...but you're about to." He said darkly and turned from the sun. I caught his eye for only a moment, and it told me that whatever was about to happen, I was not ready for. He nearly ran out of the room and started down the steps two at a time. But this was a curiosity I couldn’t vanquish. I quickly hopped over to the window, hoping to see what he'd seen, but we were so far up, I wasn't sure what I was looking at in the fading sunlight.

Not as far below as I would have thought with climbing all those stairs, a single form paced in the courtyard of the temple. Even from the tip-top of the pagoda, I could see it was hideous, emphasis on the 'it', because there was no way it was human. It was a chimera-esque type of demon. On it's back were wings of two different sizes, and it snarled at the front door with exposed underbitten fangs that dripped with murky drool. Its skin was a charcoal grey and looked like a combination of leathery and scaly, while its claws dug into the dirt as it’s arms, which were freakishly long for its body, drug behind it.

Rather than sit around and gawk, I sprinted after Minseok. He was already far ahead of me, but the panic in my chest was keeping me steady as I chased after him. He ignored my cries of 'what the hell is that?' and 'where are you going?’, but as he reached the bottom landing of the stairs, the creature outside let out an ear-shattering howl, and Minseok stopped.

The sound frightened me to my core, and cause me to miss a step. I reached out blindly for the railing but felt the ground slip out from under me before I could save myself. My shoulders and face smacked against something freezing before I realized I was sliding, careening down the stairs that had turned into a slide of ice. I landed with an ungraceful splat at the bottom, right at Minseok’s feet, barely able to register what just happened.

"Ice?" I squealed. He'd said the ice temple was only named that because it was made out of ice, but I guess it was more than that. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a sigh of relief bloomed around the fact that Minseok wasn't the god of darkness after all.

Almost like he felt my ease he whipped around and growled,

“Do not follow me,” before throwing the door open in a flurry of snow, and slamming it behind him. Mesmerized, I watched as ice crystals snaked up the hinges like fissures, leaving a beautiful yet dreadful display of power. The door was iced shut, and Minseok was facing that abomination alone.

That fact that I knew it was sealed didn't stop me from jumping to my feet and throwing myself against the doors, crying in frustration. What a complete idiot he was! The creature growled again, and the keepers and abbots of the healing temple started to bleed from the woodwork, crowding the front door behind me. 'Why is it locked?' one yelled. 'We're trapped!' another cried. They were scared and confused, and worst of all, they didn't know the truth. I pounded my fists against the door and cursed Minseok for being so righteous. I guess it would actually be Xiumin I should be mad at, but it didn't feel right cursing his formal name, even as he was doing the stupidest thing imaginable.

I looked back into the group of scared keepers, only to catch sight of the bald spot of the Head abbot as he waddled down the stairs, gold spectacles shining.

"Ice Keeper!" His voice boomed, and all the commotion around me stopped. He was so much louder than I would have expected and being called out centered all the attention on me. The healing keepers all stared at me, and I spied Kyulkyung behind the head abbot. I guess they were finally done with my tonic.

"Y-Yes, Abbot?" I murmured, pressing my back against the door that was keeping us in. Another howl echoed throughout the tower and I grimaced. There was no hiding them now, neither their secret nor ours.

"Your place is beside your god! Do what you must!" He pointed his cane at me--at my pocket! With a stupid look of realization, I fumbled with my robe, pulling out the little box that held the pills they'd made for me.

"What happens if I take it?" I yelled back. There was no time for subtlety, no time to ease the rest of the keepers into the world as it actually was. I needed my strength, he knew how to get it...we understood each other. How he knew Minseok was actually Xiumin...I suppose that was a matter for another time.

"Nothing?" Kyulkyung chimed in behind him, confusion written into her face. "It's a warming tonic. It'll just--"

"Ignite your fire." The Head Abbot cut her off with the tap of his stick.

 

 

 

Xiumin preferred to fight the battles himself. It didn't matter that he had a whole temple of capable keepers at his disposal, if he could have it his way (which he often could because he was a god), he would be the only one to stand in harm's way. Even when there was an army to face...like the one he felt coming under his feet. The monster howling before him was just the first course.

He'd heard the stories of the abominations of Luhan's Mind temple, but this was the first time he'd ever encountered one. The Healing temple was definitely lucky that they'd come when they had.

Years ago, after the first temple went dark, strange and terrible things began to lurk in the shadows of the fallen mountain. It was Kai, the god of the Astral temple, who theorized that the energies those temples once focused were now in a panic, unchecked. Instead of localizing around their towers, they latched onto anything: structures, creatures, people. Over time, their energies fused with one another, and the monsters born from the combinations were mindless and savage. And what's worse is they continued to combine, lumping together in a patchwork of mismatched matter, over and over.

Legend says the three dark temples: Luhan's Mind Temple, Yifan's Flight Temple, and Zitao's Time Temple, were all overrun with these creatures. Occasionally, they would wander off their mountains in search of more spiritual energy, and this became the purpose of Tenebros: to keep those creatures at bay. Luckily, they rarely roamed in packs and one or two were not so formidable. But lately, they were becoming organized, strategic even, and right then, staring the chimera in the face, Xiumin felt like he'd fallen into a trap.

It was his great misfortune that the first creature he'd faced in months would be one with telekinesis. Flight would have been so much easier. He was a close quarters fighter, but the chimera would be able to attack from afar, never letting him get into its space. Xiumin took a step out into a fighting stance with a sigh, watching the creature pace back and forth as if it was waiting for something. If he could take out the scout before the army arrived, it would benefit them all. All around them, bits and pieces of ground, metal, wood, and water were floating around, caught on the untamed wave of the creatures telekinetic powers. Trivial...

Minseok charged, and the monster quickly matched him. The rocks and trees hovering in the air were suddenly turned to missiles as they hurled towards the Ice god, and he had to refocus on dodging the obstacles instead of attacking. He bounced on the balls of his feet, somersaulting through the air, avoiding the largest of the comets, each flip taking him closer to the beast. When he was within arms reach, he clenched his fists, summoning hard ice to sharpen at his forearms and extend past his palms. Tanfas, but not. Swords, but not. They were his own expertise, and he used his right arm to swipe up at the unsuspecting monster. It howled as Minseok’s blade sliced through its scaly flesh, and backtracked, swatting at the smaller got with its giant claw. Minseok easily dodged, but went in again, landing strike after strike. If he could just keep this up, he would win. And if he could win, maybe there was still a chance to save the mountain.

Minseok slashed down at the creature’s flank, planning to maim it into retreat, but was met with the smaller of the two wings, slapping him away. He flew hard and fast, crashing into the door of the healing temple and crumbling to the ground. Damn, when it, it hit like iron. He had to use the door as leverage to get back on his feet, and he could distinctly hear the shouts of a certain fire keeper from the other side, frantically asking what was happening. Or, well...no, she was saying something else. Something like, stand back? The doors he’d sealed shut himself began to convulse, and for a split second Minseok thought the creature was trying to get in when really, she was trying to get out.


	8. Chapter 8

The once beautiful door of the Healing temple exploded like a volcano, in a swirl of ash and fire. If he’d had the reflex, Minseok would have dove out of the way, but instead he stood and stared. Char marks flashed up both sides of the unhinged entryway, and she stood in the middle, tentative steps onto the battlefield, hands alight, hair billowing. She looked like the center of a candle, her whole body outlined in light and embers, and her eyes that had been so plain before, were glowing at him. Bright orbs of heat glaring at him.

_Oh, she was mad!_

Maybe if he quit making the women in his life hate him, Minseok would be far less stressed. As it was, his most most prized fighter was more set on screaming at him than she was destroying the monster that was set on tearing this temple down. But she didn’t have time to lecture or argue, as said chimera roared, getting back to its feet where the blast had knocked it over.

“Look out!” She yelled as the monster sent a piece of the mountain flying towards Minseok with only it’s thoughts. Her warning caught it’s attention though, and the boulder changed directions mid flight, careening towards her instead. Minseok dashed towards the missle, ice forming in a spike over his arm. He lanced the boulder, shattering it into a million pieces. But he wasn’t the only one who moved. The girl on fire sprinted forward, running headlong into danger, and used Minseok’s outstretched arm to boost her into the air, giving her the advantage of height. He watched in pure astonishment as, among the pebbles of the rock he destroyed, she stretched her palm out to the monster and screamed as a ball of fire erupted from her hands. One huge blast that he could tell was unnecessarily strong. As if it consumed all the light around them, and heated up from the last rays of setting sun, the fireball grew as it descended on the howling creature, and for a brief second, all was quiet…

Until it erupted.

Pure power detonated in the courtyard, throwing the girl all the way back into the wall of the temple, and Minseok back through the doors, landing on a pile of keepers in pink robes. The resounded cacophony deafened him, and he thought he was seeing stars. The pink robes quickly helped him to his feet just in time to see the girl tumble out of the hole in the tower like a fallen angel.

“That was too much! You used too much!” He said, but the keepers around him winced, and he realized he might have just screamed it.

* * *

 

To my credit, it wasn't the first time I'd been thrown up against a wall so hard my head spun. But it was the first time that I left a Keeper sized hole in the ancient stone. I managed to catch myself on the way down and land relatively on my feet, but Minseok was already yelling by that time, still trying to detangle himself from the pile of abbots he'd landed in. Surveying the damage with a grimace, I realized that the courtyard was in ruins. The beautiful cherry blossom trees and delicate gardens were burned to a crisp, and the walkway that led up to the entrance was buried under a pile of broken earth and rubble. There was no trace of the monster, not even a scrap of leathery wing. I guess this was the kind of destruction a fire keeper was capable of, but still, seeing it first hand was astonishing...and a little nauseating at the same time.

Man this would have been great to know beforehand!

I trudged back to Minseok with a scowl while he was still going on about how I'd used too much fire in one attack, and how I'd disobeyed orders by following him out.

"And look what you did to the temple!" He cried, gesturing wildly to the char marks on either doors.

"I saved you, didn't I?" I snarled. Now was not the time for our usual banter, not when the healing keepers were backing away from us like there were still two monsters yet to destroy.

"I didn't need saving!" Minseok snapped, but he must have caught the way I shrank away from the gazes, because his next words were not so harsh. "You killed your first monster, but that doesn't count for much when there's an army on the way."

“What do you mean by that?” My head jerked up at his implication.

“There are more coming. They’re attracted to the energies of a godless mountain." With each new truth, Minseok inched closer to me. Maybe he didn't want to start a panic or maybe he just really wanted me to understand that this--This was our function, this was the truth. What I’d so badly wanted to know and be apart of was this: we protected our world from monsters...and that meant destroying them before they destroyed us. "They’re from the dark temples and they can sense that Yixing is gone.”

“Wait… by ‘ _gone_ ,’ do you mean…” I didn't dare say the words out loud. Minseok had said it was easy to kill a god if you had the right weapon.

“I don’t know what I mean!” Xiumin barked at me, betraying his frustration. “But he’s not here and they know. We have to stop them.”

"What do you need from me?" I asked, ready to render my service. No more banter, no more talking back...for now. We needed to be in sync if we were going to make it out of this alive, and not let our temple go dark in the process.

Minseok looked around the landing of the healing temple, gazing over the keepers that were still huddled together and gaping at us. "Barricaid these doors as best you can. Under no circumstances can we let them in the tower." He ordered, but none of them moved, petrified at the sight of such a hellion.

“Kyulkyung...” I called gently, hoping to bring her out of it easy. My friend jolted at the sound of her name, and I caught her eyes. She was probably more shocked at my sudden prowess than the creature who was about to bring down her home. Ever since we were little, we’d prepared ourselves for how we would change when he entered our temples, but I don’t think this is what she’d had in mind when she thought of me and my fire.

But my call brought her back to her senses as she grabbed the keepers on either side of her and woke them from their stupor. They started running around the floor, searching for things to pry the seared doors with.

"We will do as you ask, Xiumin, Ice God. All we ask is that you save us. Keep our temple alive as long as it takes for Yixing to return!" The head abbot tapped his stick on the bottom stair for emphasis. His keepers would follow him, and now was still not the time to ask him how he knew so much about Tenebros.

I felt Minseok tug on my elbow, leading me back out the smoldering doors that were being wedged from the walls. “When this is over, you and I are going to have a long talk about your fire.” He threatened, and I bristled.

“Oh really? You mean the talk you’ve been promising me since I got to your temple?” I snapped back, and I saw him grind his teeth. Neither of us made it very far though, before a distant sound caught both of our attention.

“What was that?” I asked, hoping I would like the answer, but Minseok tensed beside me.

“Can you send up a flare?” He asked, and I figured, what was one more fireball? I snapped my fingers, watching in fascination as a globe of lava ballooned from my fingertips, and then I lobbed it into the air. It took a moment for the light to reach across the sweeping valley, but when it was enough, we were both horrified at what we saw: a wall of creatures were heading our way. Some were flying, some were running, there were even snake-like ones sliding along the ground. All of them just as disfigured and scary as the next, and all of them...coming for us.

"We have to evacuate." I heard Minseok wince from beside me, and my face spread with horror.

"But the Healing Abbot just said--" I tried to argue, but Xiumin-- _not Minseok_ \--shot me a silencing glare.

"I know what he said, but that's one of the biggest hoards I've ever seen and it's just the two of us. We'll never be able to save everyone if we try and fight them head on."

"But..." I dwindled as he left me to run back through the doors. "We can't let this temple go dark." The monster army let out another deafening screech and I jumped to make it to Minseok's side before he left me.

"The more important task is to find Yixing. As long as the mountain has a god, we can reclaim the temple." Minseok pushed through the keepers to stand before the Head Abbot. They eyed each other tensely, and I caught a look of suspicion in the human's eyes. "You have a tunnel linked to the ice temple. I saw it on our tour."

"It is our forbidden floor. We were told never to go near it." The abbot said lowly.

"Of course not. That would alert Kai." Minseok said more to himself than the abbot. "Get the doors shut and then lead all of your keepers to that portal." The abbot nodded and quickly relayed the order. We helped the keepers use a long beam of iron to leverage the doors from the wall they'd melted to. They no longer hung straight or even closed, but it was better than a gaping mouth into the temple, and it was better than staring at the army that was descending. Then we helped them pack up the most precious items in the temple, only the things that could not be replaced, before heading up the stairs again.

I could feel my legs growing weaker, but I fought against the heaviness. Those pills sure didn't last long, or maybe it was because I threw all my eggs in one basket. Whether or not it was worth it was irrelevant, because it gave us the time we needed to evacuate.

I tripped up the stairs holding the book that contained the warming tonic. It was only the third or fourth time I'd done so, but this time I felt a firm hand grasp my upper arm, strong enough to hurt. I looked at Kyulkyung and the look on her face was painfully similar to the ache in my chest.

This is not how we thought our lives would go.

"Be more careful," was all she said, before she hefted her stack of books to the other hip and continued up. I reached over and grabbed her head, kissing her temple just like I did when we were little before she could protest. She let me, but I knew she was still processing, so I reluctantly released her and she hurried up to the side of the abbot.

I felt the rumble of a million demons landing in the courtyard and I doubted we would be able to get everyone out in time. A long line of keepers stretched down below me as they slowly marched to the forbidden tunnel. Funny, it didn't seem like there had been this many when I was here last, but I guess as complicated as the temple was, and how it unfolded itself with every new floor, keepers could literally come out of the woodwork. Suddenly, there was a deafening pounding, and everyone stopped and covered their ears. It was like we were in a giant bell, and with each gong of a monstrous body against the tower, it struck us right behind the eyes.

"Keep moving!" I screamed, even as I crumbled to my knees on the steps.

"We're never going to make it!" I heard Kyulkyung yell, and when I looked up to find her voice at the front of the line, I saw the fear in her eyes as plain as day. I watched her mouth form the words, 'Please' just to me, and I was on my feet in an instant. Just like when we first arrived and I couldn't find it in myself to take a single step, Kyulkyung was worth the pain. I clambered to my feet and took off down the steps, past the slower and older keepers, past the abbots who were carrying too much, and past Minseok who was bringing up the rear.

"Where are you going!?" He shouted after me, but there was no way his warning was going to penetrate. My thoughts were on fire with the fear in my friends eyes, and I was not about to hide when I finally knew what my destiny was.

_I was the fire keeper of Tenebros Temple. I had fire in my veins and I could burn down this whole mountain if I wanted!_


	9. Chapter 9

The bottoms of the doors were angled in such a way that I could crawl between then without opening them, a little gap to another world. Just as I was out, I threw my back against the wall again, sudden paralyzing fear crippling me. The chimera who'd attacked earlier was grotesque enough, but I bet it had been beautiful in comparison to the army that was swarming in front of the temple. The snake like creatures were the worst, slithering over the destruction of the once peaceful garden, but with prehensile feet and fingers sticking out like afterthoughts, and the deer like animals with two heads, and eyes the dripped like it was crying. They swayed together as a chorus, back and fourth, one giant writhing blob as they crowded to the door, wailing loud enough to make my head spin.

I had to stop them from taking down the door that was for sure a one hit kill. Frantically I looked around for something to use to stall for time, before I remembered...uhh, duh. I was my own weapon. One tentative step after the other, I sucked in deep calming breaths, rising up to meet the challenge of the on coming army. I imagined that my spirit was a well with a bottom as deep as the ocean. No matter how many times I dipped into it, there would always be more.

Just when we were about to meet and I could see the bloodshot eyes of each demon, I dropped to my knees and threw both fists pounding to the ground. In front of me, a neon crack in the earth spread from my hands, stretching in both directions for as far as I could see, and a massive wall of fire shot up from the ground. Any monsters that tried to jump through were incinerated on contact by the hottest flame I could produce, and it kept all the others from crossing. Nothing was getting through my barricade. Unlike the fireball that was amass and smash, the wall of flame was a constant sustaining effort. I could feel the way the heat spread between the ridges on my fingerprints, making my hands glow yellow and orange. It felt like every flame was another arm, swirling into the sky at the height that I desired, and batting away whatever dare flew into its path. And I knew how to do it unconsciously, like breathing.

 

"How long can you hold it?" A hand grazed my shoulder and I jumped out of my skin. In response, the wall wavered, and I quickly refocused my efforts. Minseok was on my left, hovering just a little too close for the way the courtyard was quiet. Beyond the muffled sounds of howls and confused grunts, on my side of the fire it sounded like a lazy winter morning, the fireplace crackling with easy heat. And the way Minseok's hand slid from my shoulder to the middle of back made the feeling even deeper. Even worse.

"I have no clue." I muttered eventually, answering his question. I could sense how hot spots flared up in the flames and then died out, needing to be bolstered to patch the opening. It required concentration, and his touch was too damn distracting.

"This is dangerous for you...you know that." He said cautiously, but I nodded.

"I know." If I could protect Kyulkyung and the rest of the healing temple, it would have been worth it.

"Guess we'll have to make the most of it then, won't we?" My eyes snapped to Minseok as his hand fell from my back and he stepped in front of me, extending his arms in nearly the same fashion.

"Your ice will melt before it even gets close." I warned him, but the look he shot back at me was...mischievous, like he had a card up his sleeve he hadn't told me about. Which was likely since he hadn't told me anything!

He kept my gaze pinned under his as his normally brown eyes swirled, consumed by an evergreen. And then a howl like the north wind whipped through the mountains, drowning out the monsters, sending shivers up my spine to the place where his hand had been. It was almost like I could still feel his touch, and it was still distracting as hell. Minseok turned his attention to my wall of weakening flame and shouted,

"Give me all you got, fire heart!" There was a split second of hesitation, a moment of fear coupled with the singing of my nerves...but I remembered the well, and I dug deep. Heat rippled down my arms as I moaned in effort.

This was _ too much _ . And if I could tell it was too much...that was a problem.

But the wall surged with fire, glowing an even brighter almost white, illuminating a darkened sky. It was the core of a flame, the center of a star, nearly blinding to anyone else but the green eyed Xiumin who stepped out into a wider stance. Like a dancer, he started to rotate his hands in the air and the sky followed suit. In wonder, I watched as tornadoes formed above our heads, the tips descending to meet my fire, igniting like a match. Suddenly the sky was full of cyclones full of fire spinning around banishing the dark, catching clusters of flying monsters and reducing them to ash. The sight distracted me from my shaking limbs and the seared handprint on my back.

Minseok, the ice god Xiumin, was controlling the wind! Even though I knew it was naïve, I looked around for Sehun, the wind god...just in case. But there was no one in the courtyard but us, no one in the world as powerful as us.

This was the true power of the god of Tenebros temple: the god of darkness who could use everyone else's elements. Damn him and his constant revelations! If we made it out of this alive, I was going to have a serious talk with the training abbots at the monastery. This was bullshit!

My fingers dug into the ground, trying to keep myself up right, trying to focus on the blurring swirls of color.

"Minseok..." I whimpered, fighting the blackness that edged at my vision, but losing. I saw him turn sharply to me, dropping his hands, dropping his twisters, reaching for the reigns on the only thing that was keeping the army at bay, but he wasn't fast enough. Even with all the powers of all the gods, Minseok couldn't reach me in time before I face planted, the well of my fire gone dry.

* * *

Kyulkyung's first day in the healing temple had been an emotional one. She was thrilled to be there, but she was also scared to death. Only eight keepers had been chosen for Yixing this generation, and she knew their names but nothing else. It was the first time in a very long time...well if she was being honest, the first time ever that she had been on her own. Her bunk mate had always been by her side, encouraging her, comforting her, protecting her. Her constant shadow had become so regular that now that she was out in the sunlight, Kyulkyung felt heliophobic.

So when her friend had come to visit her, she had been so happy that she said things she wasn't supposed to. But this was her best friend! No matter what she told her, she would never betray Kyulkyung's trust. They'd promised even before the Hemic that they would always be able to talk to one another, even when they were separated. Owls were great messengers, of course. But this...her power...it went beyond what either of them could have ever expected, and it made Kyulkyung's stomach twist into a queasy knot.

She was jealous.

Which was stupid. But when did that ever matter? Her friend had always been destined for great things, that much had been obvious by the constant spark in her eye. She was the best keeper of their generation; the strongest, the smartest, but also gracious. There was no denying she was a spit fire, but she was spit fire who would burn the whole world to the ground for her friends, that much Kyulkyung knew for sure. And because of this, not longer after her friend went rushing off into danger alone, Kyulkyung shucked her books off on the next keeper and turned to rush down the stairs after her.

"Keeper!" The Head abbot whom she was standing beside shouted at her and she froze. "This is not a battle you can fight. Everyone has their own destiny to follow." Her fingers curled into fists at the pure note of condescension in his tone. Kyulkyung had never gone against an abbot, but for her...for her friend whom had heard her plea and sprang into action...? To hell with abbots.

She practically flew down the stairs, the head abbot calling after her, but no one grabbed for her or tried to actually stop her. On the way down she snatched a bow and arrows from the load another keeper was carrying and slung with quiver over her back.  Maybe she couldn't heal with her hands like Yixing or Xiumin, but she could still keep them covered. Her spit fire had always been the strongest, but she had poor aim, a skill Kyulkyung made up for in excess. She reached the bottom landing only to pause at how the outline of the door glowed, like there were a million fireflies trying to get in. Beyond them was an eerie silence that didn't sit well with her, so she quickly ran to the wall, grabbing the loose uneven stone and climbing up to an embrasure window large enough for her to perch at.

The courtyard below her was made of fire, her friend kneeling directly in the center, while Xiumin--although she'd called him Minseok--stood in front of her. He seemed to be controlling the tornados that were spinning around the sky like tops, bouncing into the dark smudges in the dark clouds. Even with the light of the wall and squinting, Kyulkyung couldn't make out what they were, but she also wasn't sure she wanted to. Just remembered the creature from earlier was enough to send shivers down her arms, and she knocked an arrow out of instinct.

Then, to Kyulkyung's horror, her ever constant fireball of a friend face planted right into the dirt. The wall of flames that had been keeping the monsters at bay disintegrated, drowning the courtyard in darkness and ambush. Kyulkyung frantically looked for something to use to light their path, but there was nothing in the courtyard that hadn't already been reduced to dust. Then she laid her eyes on what was beyond the yard, beyond the gentle touch of the healing temple: the rest of the mountain. She lamented as she tore off a length of her blush pink robe and wrapped it around her arrow, then took the iron head and scraped it against the stones beside her again and again until sparks flashed and the fabric caught. Quickly she knocked the arrow again and pulled back the string. The easy stretch of her muscles from long hours of practice didn't fail her as she aimed high and released with a whistle.

To hell with abbots. To hell with the mountain.

Like a falling star, the fire arrow streaked across the sky, zooming past the demons that were dive bombing the yard, and crashed to earth amidst the plush mulberry bushes Kyulkyung had only gotten the privilege to trim once. The bush lit up like a flare, and with just that little bit of light, Kyulkyung knocked another arrow and shot a monster out of the sky. As the wildfire spread, consuming the vegetation around it, Kyulkyung knocked more arrows and shot down more monsters. But no matter how many she took down, a million more replaced it. The hoard was practically never ending.

Down below, Xiumin scooped up her fire friend and was trying to bat away the slithering snake demons that were attacking him on the ground, but there were just too many for him to defend one handed. Kyulkyung quickly shot at the one who was going to bite him. When her arrow sank into it's head, Xiumin glanced up and pinned her with a stare.

"Get her inside!" She shouted, and wondered where she got the balls to do so. But the god didn't argue. He started to inch back towards the gap in the doors, but before he could, one of the deer monsters charged him, scooping him up in it's wilting antlers. He dropped his keeper who fumbled like a rag doll, and Kyulkyung screamed. She shot at the buck, but it didn't falter as it rampaged into the tower, ramming Xiumin against the stone with its horns. But she didn't have time to panic over the ice god because a snake demon was slithering towards her friend.

Kyulkyung quickly reached back for another arrow, but her fingers only found air. She was out! Terror shot up her spine as she quickly turned to shout at the other keepers for more arrows, but there were none! The spiral staircase that had been packed with the slower abbots was now empty. She should be happy they got to safety. She should be thankful Yixing had planned for such an occasion. But all she felt...was tangible hopelessness. She turned back to the courtyard, crying out when she saw the snake twist itself around her best friend. It coiled upright, holding her aloft like some sort of prize, and then it's big twisted head rose and Kyulkyung went queasy inside. The flesh around its lips was pulled back, emaciated, and the long row of fangs it bared were dripping with dark fluid. It reared back, but Kyulkyung couldn't bare to watch, covering her eyes. The movement threw her off balance, and watching her friend get eaten was suddenly the least of her worries as she fell backwards off her ledge. Her arms flailed but she couldn't save herself.   
  
A bleak thought crossed her mind that this was probably her punishment for telling her abbots to go to hell. Her karma for thinking she could 'go against fate'. And what's worse is she couldn't even find solace in the fact that she'd saved her friend. But fate, as it would have it, has a funny sense of humor. Just as she was resigning to her end of cracking her head against the tile, she was caught by two strong arms.    
"Look, Kai! I caught an angel!"


	10. Chapter 10

The head of the snake thudded a few feet away, decapitated from its squirming body, and the head of her pick hummed with negative energy from the blood of the creature.

"Nayeon!" Minseok cried almost in relief as he tore apart the deer that had pinned him so inconveniently to the tower wall. But when her brown eyes trained on him he wilted.

She was mad!

They were always mad!

"I leave for five minutes," She growled, casually batting away a disfigured eagle that swooped down to take her, "and you let all hell break loose!"

"Why are you blaming me for this!?" Minseok whined as he sliced through a whole wild boar.

"'I'm in a temple'," Nayeon mocked, sinking her pick into the skull of a deer, "'No harm can befall me here'."

"You are mocking your god!" Minseok pointed at her, but there was no strength behind it, and they both knew it.

"Pffft." She rolled her eyes, and just like that, they were in sync like they used to be, fighting creatures, not needing to speak to be able to read the battle.

"Fine," He conceded when there was a small reprieve and he was panting from the sport of it, "but at least you can't say my dick led us into this."

"No...but I will blame your other head." Nayeon smirked, spinning her pick in her hands.

"Did you bring backup or not?" Minseok whined, ready to take a shower and play clean up, but Nayeon grimaced.

"No! I never left the mountain! What kind of keeper do you take me for?" They killed a few more monsters, carefully stepping around the body of their fallen comrade, when the doors behind them burst forth, blown completely from their already burnt hinges.

"It doesn't matter. Looks like mine is here..." Minseok moaned, and Nayeon twisted around to see people walking through the smoke towards them.

"What! But, Minseok..." She grabbed his arm because she knew what was coming next, but he shrugged out of her grip.

"Just let it happen."

The gods came into view: Suho of the Water temple, Baekhyun of the Light temple, Chen of the Lightning temple, Chanyeol of the Fire temple, DO of the Earth temple, Kai of the Astral temple, and Sehun from the Wind temple. Each step the gods took to come to their rescue was like a punch in the gut of Minseok and he doubled over in obvious pain. Nayeon grabbed his shoulders, careful not to crush him as he grew more frail by the foot.  In Baekhyun's arms was the healer keeper the spitfire loved, and her eyes were stuck on the face of the man who carried her. In Kyulkyung's defense, the light god did tend to dazzle, and he carefully set her aside and then skipped forward towards the monsters like they were puppies instead. In his hand grew a ball of light so intense and Nayeon had to look away. It swelled until it was bigger than his head and he pitched it to the ground. It bounced right back up and up, trailing a wake of sparkles before exploding like a firework. Only, instead of a snap shot, the sparkles lingered in the air, reflecting off one another, effectively lighting up the sky almost as if it were a dusky morning.

Chen glanced over and winced openly at the visible discomfort on his companions face as Minseok grunted and rested his forehead on Nayeon's arm.

"Sorry, Xiumin. We figured you could use some help." He said quietly, and the ice keeper tried not to glare.

"I had it...under control..." Minseok panted back.

"If that were true, you wouldn't have used my portal." Kai stepped over to him carefully, not quite close enough to touch, but close enough to show concern.

All the gods knew what happened when they approached the ice god...which is why they hardly ever did. It was a lonely existence, but it's why he got first pick at the keepers. One couldn't walk around with access to every power on the planet without a substantial draw back, and the downside to Xiumin's abilities was that he never got to keep them. Although, they were never really his in the first place, he only borrowed them for a short while (stranding the original god in the meantime). He most often stole Suho's Water and turned it to ice to suit his image, but when the occasion arose, Xiumin was known to dabble with the others. Just a little while ago as had Kai gathered them all through his portals, Sehun mentioned that Xiumin had taken ahold of his magic, knocking the wind quite literally out of him.

"My keeper..." Minseok threw a hand towards where Kyulkyung was kneeling by her friend. Her hands moved expertly from her wrist, to her neck, checking her eyes, her mouth, pinching her, rubbing her hands together, anything to try and wake her up. It wasn't working. "Where the hell...is Yixing?"

Suho surveyed the army before him with a quiet frown. He was usually the one to take charge when the gods assembled like this. Xiumin acted as their watchdog. He squashed any enemies that the range might face, but if the danger were to get past him, the gods intervened.

"Baekhyun, Chen, Sehun, and I will take care of the hoard. DO, Kai: find our missing friend. And Chanyeol..." Suho glanced at the unconscious fire keeper, "See if you can help."

The pantheon of gods converging on a single target should have been something Nayeon was enraptured by, but she could barely take her eyes off of Minseok's labored breathing.

"Let me take you into the temple." She whispered into his hair. "The further away you are, the easier it is." There was single nod from her god who still had his head buried in the crook of her arm, one that didn't want to give away how weak he felt. Nayeon knew if anyone asked, she would tell them she took action on her own, that Xiumin had tried to stay back and fight, that he had resisted when she stood as gently as she could, saddling almost all of his weight against her hip and led him inside. He felt like nothing, like a broken little bird in her arms, stripped of his powers and reduced to essentially human. Even his own keepers were more powerful than he in this state. She only turned back once to see arcs of lighting zap through the monsters in the sky, and a tidal wave of salt water engulf the mountain to calm the raging fire. But those powers and those gods only left a bitter taste in her mouth as she carried her limping god inside.

* * *

While the other four were fighting, Kai diligently watched over DO as he lowered himself down and pressed his ear to the ground. The smaller deity had immeasurable strength, but also a keen sense of hearing. He could listen to all the footsteps laid upon his earth and tell you where anyone was at any given moment.

"That's weird..." He mumbled, and Kai leaned down to hear.

"What?"

"There's someone at the Mind Temple."

"Monsters?" Kai offered, because everyone knew that the abandoned temples were overrun with vermin.

"No...I think it's Lay." DO looked up at him in confusion. "Why would he be there?"

"I'll find out." Kai blinked out of existence with hardly a stir of dust. His portals were just gaps between here and there, no outline or indication. But Kai himself never used the portals. He simply was there one moment and gone the next.

The tallest of the gods knelt down beside Kyulkyung, assessing...he wasn't entirely sure. Chanyeol couldn't heal her, he wasn't Yixing. But he could feel how the blood in her veins was growing colder, and her lips were tingeing blue.

"Why is she so cold?" He asked the young healer, but she gave him an incredulous look.

"If you had just taken her into your temple like she wanted, none of this would have happened!" Color him surprised.

" _ This _ is the fire keeper of Tenebros?"

"She's not a fire keeper!" Kyulkyung snapped, rubbing her hands up and down her friend's arms to try and keeper her warm. "She's an ice keeper, and she...and she..." She faltered, trying hard not to admit that she was out of her depth but failing.  _ Tenebros _ ...that had been the word etched on the book where they found the warming recipe.

_ The warming recipe! _

Kyulkyung practically shoved Chanyeol aside trying to get to her friend's robes, searching for the little box the head abbot had given her. In her pocket was the small ornate box that held her last two pills. 

“I need more silversword.” Kyulkyung told Chanyeol. He had big eyes and floppy red hair. She barely remembered when he came to the monastery when they were children to save her friend. At the time, all she could recall was that he was tall and other worldly, but now she was wondering (besides the powers and immortality) what exactly made him so mysterious. “It’s the grey plan that grows in the lava flow.”

“I know what it is, little girl.” He curled his lip at her insult.

“I am not little!” She bristled at his, but he only shook his head, muttering under his breath,

“Sheesh, Yixing sure has his hands full with--”

“ _ CHANYEOL _ !”

A portal yawned open over Kyulkyung and she watched with elation as Yixing, her handsome pure god flew through the air. But her happiness was cut short when he wrapped his slender fingers around Chanyeol’s neck and toppled them both to the ground. 

“Lay!”

“My Lord!” Both newly arrived Kai and Kyulkyung jumped in, trying to seperate the two. Chanyeol’s face was a mixture of shock, confusion, and anger as he used his longer limbs to try and break free. As they tumbled, the air around them started to heat up, shimmering against their bodies, making them sweat, but not once did Chanyeol try to use his fire on his friend. 

“Get off him!” DO Finally rushed over and pulled the two gods apart easily, but Yixing still fought, still glared death at the fire god. 

“What has gotten into you?” Suho demanded as all the gods congregated. To her surprise, Kyulkyung looked up to an empty sky and a bare mountain. All the men were arguing but she still had the nerve to ask,

“Where are the monsters?” They couldn’t have possibly killed them all. There were so many! 

“They’re gone, keeper. The god of the mountain has returned…” Chen told her kindly, then turned an electrified scowl at Lay, “confused.” 

“I am not! I have never seen more clearly!” Yixing shoved out of DO’s arms and pointed at Chanyeol. “ _ He is the reason the temples went dark! He is the reason Luhan, Yifan, and Tao are dead! _ ”

* * *

It was blissfully warm. That was the first thing I noticed before I even opened my eyes. The weight on my chest was comfortable and the soft crackle of fire by my feet nearly sent me back to sleep. But there was a solid hand in mine, a thumb smoothing lazy circled on the back on my fingers, and a soft tune I recognized from childhood dreams.

“Kyulkyung?” I rasped, and then grimaced. My throat felt like sandpaper. My best friend jumped up from where she’d been seated at my bedside and threw herself on top of me. 

“You’re finally awake!” She cried and smothered me in even more of her warmth. My arms were like noodles, but I managed to push her off long enough to ask what happened. 

“Yixing returned to the mountain and all the monsters left.” She brushed my hair from my forehead and avoided my eye, which was a sign that she wasn’t telling me everything. 

“What else?” I pressed, and she dropped her hands from me completely. She turned to look at the fire, or the ceiling or the desk, anywhere but me as I waited for her to spit it out. 

“You know how you came to me a couple of days ago, and said you were having a crisis of faith?” She started slowly. 

“Yeah?” I tried to sit up but she pushed me back down, forcing herself to look at my face. 

“Now  _ I’m _ having one.” 

“Why?” I pushed against her hold, but she pressed her weight and her face to my chest just so she wouldn’t have to look at me as she said,

“Yixing...did something, and your god told me  _ not  _ to do something...and I don’t agree with either of them.” 

“What did Yixing do? Where was he? Why did he leave his temple for so long?” I sputtered, realizing I was still in the dark. 

“My god went to the Mind Temple without telling anyone to discover why it went dark.” She murmured. 

“Well did he?” Kyulkyung sat up stiffly, and I heard her sniff, the telltale sign that she was holding back tears. 

“...Xiumin told me I couldn’t tell you.” 

“What? Why not!” I growled and sat all the way up. A heat started to build up at the base of my spine as I thought of Minseok telling my friend that she couldn’t tell me something, anything. How dare he? Hadn’t he promised me the truth? “Why would he keep that from me?”

“Why would you keep the fact that you had powers from me?” Kyulkyung snapped and my fury fractured. She wasn’t afraid to touch me, or defy her gods for me, but she was also not afraid to be mad at me. 

“I’m sorry.” I muttered, “I didn’t know either. Nobody told me what the Ice Temple really was.” She gave me a side eyed look that told me I was probably still in for more cold shoulder later, but there was no time for it now. She stood from her chair and went over to the desk where a large black book sat. 

“Tenebros…?” She said, and ran her finger over the title. It was the book the healing abbot had used to make the warming tonic. 

“Yes, the Temple of Darkness.” I told her what little I knew. “It gives powers to even the keepers, and Min--I mean Xiumin can wield them all.” She gave me a hard look at my censure, but I wasn’t sure where the boundaries were anymore, or even if there were any. I mean, just the fact that Kyulkyung was here was forbidden. Healing keepers weren’t allowed to leave their temple, but I’d been awake for the evacuation. But she said Yixing had returned, so why hadn’t she?

“I think...I think it’s because you’re a fire keeper that Xiumin doesn’t want you to know what Yixing found.” She said quietly, turned to lean against the desk. She put distance between us...

“What does that have to do with anything?” I questioned. She stared unblinking at the book, almost like she could read it without touching it. Maybe she was hoping it would give her the answers. Maybe she was hoping it would tell her how to make everything go back to how it had been before our worlds were turned upside down. 

“...The gods have imprisoned Chanyeol because Yixing says he caused the temples to go dark.”

_ That  _ was definitely not what I had expected.

“ _ What _ ?” I cried. “That’s impossible!” 

“I don’t believe it either,” She shrugged, “but Yixing says he found proof.”

“That’s crazy. Chanyeol would never--” My mind swirled with implications and questions, but no matter how I calculated, I couldn’t make it right. Chanyeol was a kind soul, a flame to ward off the darkness of night. He didn’t kill his brothers, he rescued little keepers from lakes! But before I could make the argument to the stone walls of my room, there was a knock on my door, and an unwelcome couple who didn’t bother to wait for permission. 

 

“Look who's finally up?” Nayeon grinned as she came waltzing in, pulling an annoyed looking Jeno behind her. 

“Master told us to come see how you were.” He said once he’d swatted her hand away from his once pristine robin’s egg blue robes. The mention of Minseok had me throwing off my pile of fur blankets and cringing at the sudden cold. I saw Kyulkyung take a step in my direction out of instinct, but I was going head long into a tangent before she could stop me. 

“I have to see him. He has to know Chanyeol would never do this.” Nayeon took a second to register that I was trying to stand and that I knew what I wasn’t supposed to before turning to Kyulkyung and howling,

“You weren’t supposed to tell her!”

“It didn’t feel right to keep it from her and only her!” Kyulkyung fired back, “The whole range knows by now!”

“Jeno, please.” I addressed the boy for the first time. “You know Tenebros rules better than anyone. There must be some caveat Minseok can exploit to hold off the gods.” He looked at me like I was hardly worth the time it would take to explain the intricacies of celestial law, before spouting off some nonsense about,

“Lay brings with him proof of the fire gods misdeeds.” 

“What proof!” I snapped, but nobody flinched, which was disappointing. However, Jeno’s usual frowned darkened, which made me believe that there was a sliver of ice keeper in there that didn’t believe in this either.  

“The Healing God has declined to reveal his averment before the trial.” 

“Then we’ll have to go see it for ourselves.” I clapped and stood my bare feet on the cold stone floor...and toppled over. 

“Saw that coming.” Kyulkyung sighed as she came over to untangle me from the chair I’d smashed. 

“Why are you always full of stupid ideas? This is none of our business.” Nayeon rolled her eyes at me, but I wiggled out of Kyulkyung’s hold and climbed back up the bed like a cripple...Ugh I was a cripple. Not again!

“We can’t let them just kill off the fire god!” I argued. 

“News flash: you’re not a fire keeper.” Nayeon growled and marched right up in my face. She had a hue of purple in her eyes that I never would have noticed before. “You are an ice keeper. And Minseok isn’t about to risk his neck for your crush.” 

“It’s not for my crush. I don’t have a crush!” I exclaimed! Why would these people not see reason? “Minseok said something was coming, something we needed to be ready for. What if this is it? What if Chanyeol didn’t make those temples go dark, it only looks like he did?” That caused everyone in the room to halt for just a moment. We were in the temple of darkness after all. It was absolutely no stretch of the imagination if there was something else in the world that we didn’t know about. “Think about it,” I continued since I knew I had their attention, “What if the fire temple goes dark? What if they can’t just designate a new one like they did with Minseok? That’s four dark temples.What if it’s all a plan?”

There was silence for a long moment as they each took it in, and even I had to grasp the full implication of my idea. 

_ What if it’s all a plan? _

“That’s too many ‘what if’s.” Nayeon finally grumbled, but said nothing else. 

“That’s why we need to see the proof.” I said again, and this time I knew I had them on my side. 

“Even if we did decide to go, we’d never make it in time.” Kyulkyung came shooting in with reality. “The Mind Temple is five days walk from here.” 

“Not if we have Jeno, destined for the Astral temple…” The one thing that had always been consistent about Tenebros rules, was how easily they were all broken.

“Don’t look at me like that.” He barked, but all eyes trained on him, and I swear I saw his cheeks redden. 

“You can teleport, can’t you.” I smirked as he blushed even harder. 

“I hardly ever use it.” 

“But you  _ can _ .” I said as I nailed in my last conspirator. Jeno quickly looked to Nayeon, the voice of doom (or reason depending on who you ask), hoping she would get him out of it. But one look from her had him groaning. 

“...I don’t like her, but she’s not wrong. There is something going on here that threatens the pantheon, Minseok included.” 

With a dramatic sigh, Jeno relented. “Fine...I’ll get my staff.” 


	11. Chapter 11

I suppose it never occurred to me that crossing over a portal would feel like a whole lot of...nothing. Jeno simply gestured a large circle near my bedroom wall and it swirled open to a dark room somewhere far far away. Nayeon had the particularly upsetting task of carrying me on her back because no matter how I tried, or Kyulkyung tinkered, my legs wouldn't cooperate. Neither of us liked the fact that we were constantly stuck together, but what's one more uncomfortable thing when you're trying to save the world? At least...that's what I said to convince myself. And her.

 

The four of us stepped through the portal and...I don't know, I just thought it would feel like something. Like going underwater, or having my cells rearrange themselves. But there wasn't the slightest sensation from the Ice temple to the Mind temple, and once we were all through, Jeno closed it, blinking it out of existence. The room we'd landed in was dark and cold, but surprisingly quiet. Minseok had mentioned that the dark temples were overrun with monsters, and after fighting a horde and knowing how they wheeze, I figured I would be able to hear them milling about. But instead, there was just silence. The walls and floors were a light grey marble, veined with black lines, and it wasn't a square room either. The walls were rounded, and all the sounds we made echoed back with every step.

 

"This is such a bad idea," Nayeon grumbled me in one hand, her pick in the other. I wondered if she would drop me to fight, or if she would use me as a meat shield first. It was a toss-up.

 

"We're already here. Let's find whatever Yixing discovered and get the hell out...it's freezing." I mumbled the last part, knowing I sounded like a broken record. I'd learned from my lessons that the Mind temple was much further sound than even the training monastery, meaning the climate should be hotter, but here I was shivering under a fur blanket I'd fashioned into an outer robe.

 

"Will you stop moving? Your teeth are chattering in my ear." Nayeon growled and adjusted me on her back.

 

Towards the head of the round room was a door, and Jeno stealthily crept forward to put his ear to it.

 

"Anything?" Kyulkyung asked, but he shook his head. It was getting weirder by the moment. Where were the monsters? Were they attacking another temple? Jeno tried the handle and it squealed when he pulled on the hinges. It was made even louder by the echoes and all four of us retreated back a few feet to brace for an attack.

 

But nothing came to inspect the sound. Slowly we advanced again, slipping through the half-opened door one at a time, not wanting to make any more noise than necessary. The door led to a dim hallway, still rounded at all the edges and made out of the smooth marble. I touched the wall as we passed, and a cool sheen of dust came away on my fingertips. It seemed like no one had been here in years, not even monsters.

 

"Now what?" I chimed as we came to a fork in the hallway. To the right, the hallway was lighter, like it was leading to the outside; and to the left, it was darker, like it was leading further into...wherever.

 

"This doesn't feel right." Kyulkyung squinted down each corridor. "So far, there's nothing wrong with this temple. It's old and dusty but it doesn't look like it's been through any sort of battle or uprising."

 

"We've only seen the hallways." Jeno countered, but Kyulkyung shook her head.

 

"What about the bodies? Where are the bodies of the keepers?"

 

"It's been 900 years! The dust on the walls is probably the bodies!" Nayeon hissed and pushed through them towards the brighter hall.

 

"We should go the other way." I jerked on her neck like I was reigning in a horse, and in hindsight that was probably a bad idea.

 

She dropped me so fast, my butt hit the floor with a plop.

 

"I am not a damn pony!" She roared without thinking, her loud voice booming through the tunnels a thousand times. We all froze, hardly even breathing. But still, nothing happened. We strained our ears for the slightest movement, but not even the wind moved this deep in the mountain.

 

"There aren't any creatures here." I finally got up the nerve to whisper, and then said again louder. "There aren't any creatures here, so why does everyone say there are?"

 

"Is that the proof?" Kyulkyung asked, "The fact that the dark temples are empty?"

 

"It doesn't explain why he would accuse Chanyeol though." Jeno disagreed and looked down each hall again. "We should split up."

 

"You're kidding me." Nayeon blanched, swinging her pick into both hands like she was readying to fight.

 

"If it makes you feel any better, you can take the lighter tunnel." Jeno offered. She tightened her grip on her axe and glared at me. Why me, I'm not sure. It was Jeno poking the bear, not I. But still, I got the daggers.

 

"If the Spitfire wants to go down the dark creepy tunnel, we'll go down the dark creepy tunnel. But know this--" She shoved the end of her pick in my face, "If shit starts to go down, I am leaving you there." I gulped but didn't back out. It made more sense that whatever clues were to be found would be deeper in the mountain, not closer to the sky, so I saddled up on Nayeon's back again and we took the darker path. Jeno and Kyulkyung waved us off and took the lighter.

  
  
  


"Nayeon?" I squeaked against the silence once we'd walked a ways.

 

"What." She snapped back. I'm sure we looked the picture, her piggybacking me around an abandoned temple, jumping at any little noise we heard.

 

"Why did Minseok not want me to know about Chanyeol?" I wondered aloud.

 

"I assume for this very reason." She grumbled back, meaning he didn't want me to try and prove it wrong.

 

"But...he promised to always tell me the truth." I continued, wanting to at least talk it out with myself, if not her. She knew him better than me, after all. "Didn't he promise you that too?"

 

"Minseok..." Nayeon started but then faltered. It took her a few minutes to gather her thoughts, and she readjusted me on her back a time or two before she said, "Minseok talks a good game and he wants to treat his keepers as his equals, but he's still weighed down with being a half breed."

 

"He's a what?"

 

"That's just what I call it." She clarified. "He's sort of a god, but he was born and grew up human. It changed his thinking, and I guess it's why he's bitter about his destiny. You don't know this but he loses all of his powers when he's around the other gods, and while I've never seen them treat him any differently, he has this sort of...self imposed chip on his shoulder." I felt her shrug under me, and I knew it bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

 

"He told me he thinks the gods are monsters, himself included." The image of him standing beside the window in the healing temple, telling me that he was some sort of mistake will forever be seared into my brain as the definition of conflicting. He was beautiful, and he was kind. He was not a monster, and he was not a mistake.

 

"For all of Minseok's promises for transparency, he has a lot of secrets. But it's not our place to question him." Nayeon sighed, and I figured I'd let it drop.

 

"I guess..."

  
  
  


We walked along in silence for a little while more, me occasionally brushing my fingers over the smooth walls, and Nayeon constantly adjusting her load. But when the quiet became too much to bear, I heard her whisper, "I'm worried about him though."

 

"Why?" I asked just as quietly.

 

"He just seems--and if you ever tell anyone I said this, I'll skin you alive--he seems to be coming a little unglued." She both threatened and confided in me.

 

"How so?"

 

"He recruited you, for one." I rolled my eyes and would have smacked her if I didn't think she'd drop me for it.

 

"And here I thought we were having a moment."

 

"We are definitely not having a moment," She sniggered, "but I didn't mean it like that. He had absolutely no reason to take on a fire keeper. We weren't seeing any more creatures than normal, and the energies from the dark temples had even started to calm down. Things were going quietly. It didn't make sense for him to suddenly need a destroyer."

 

"Oh, I'm a destroyer now? I like the sound of that." I smirked. She made to drop me, but I latched onto her neck for dear life.

 

"Don't get too cocky. Fire is just the only true destructive element." She chuckled, before hoisting me up again.

 

"So there was no fire keeper before me? I didn't replace anybody?" I wondered. I recalled thinking I was a replacement, but when Minseok gave me my own room and said he had very little experience with fire keepers, it confused me.

 

"No, not for as long as I've been there. And from the scrolls in our library, it seems like there hadn't been a fire keeper in Tenebros in almost 2oo years."

 

"So why me?" I asked. All Minseok would ever say was it was because of the fire in my veins, but surely every fire keeper possessed my spirit. And it's not like I was born with the flames already in my hands. Tenebros had to give them to me first. And even now, I wasn't exactly using them properly. So why me?

 

"That was my question, but Minseok only ever gave me cryptic answers." Nayeon shrugged again.

 

"Wait, 200 years?" I started, wheels in my head turning.

 

"Yeah? What about it?"

 

"Minseok is 183 years old. Did he come into power just as the other fire keeper died?" He said he'd read in the journals of the previous Xiumin's how to take care of their fire keepers. Why did the previous Xiumin and his fire keeper die at the same time? Did it say in the journals?

 

"I don't know...and I don't like it," Nayeon grumbled, and I figured we needed answers now more than ever.

  
  
  


The hallway twisted ahead of us, but instead of growing darker, the end started to brighten until we stepped out into a large cavern; the biggest space I'd ever seen in my life. We stood under an overhang of rock a hundred feet high and a thousand feet long, and before us loomed an ethereal structure carved out of the side of the mountain. It wasn't chiseled into the mountain like the ice temple was, it was chipped away bit by bit until the mountain was adorned with the temple like a decoration. The walls of the structure were rounded like the rest of the hallways and a leathery red color. Once upon a time, there may have even been designs or stories depicted on the walls, but they were long since eroded by time.

 

"How the..."

 

"It was said that Luhan was blessed with telepathy, that he could move objects with his mind and read the thoughts of others," Nayeon said as I gawked at the structure before us.

 

"Did he build this whole temple with just...his thoughts?" I cried.

 

"Come on, let's go in."

 

We tiptoed through the main entrance that was at least fifty feet tall and carved into identical patterned points dusted with the remains of blue pigment. I imagined that once, it had been the most beautiful temple, vivid and colorful. From there, it looked like some sort of welcoming hall, detailed and painted to accentuate the vibrancy of the temple. The central room was rounded with four halls going off in the cardinal directions, and in the middle, there was a large dip in the floor, like a perfect half circle pool. A little ledge jutted out from the rim like a diving spot, and I urged Nayeon to have a look. We peeked over the edge into the bowl, but it was simply that: a bowl.

 

"That was a bit of a let down--" I started to whine when there was a sudden crack, and neither of us had time to jump before the ledge crumbled underfoot and we dropped into the pool.

  
  
  


This felt like something.

 

Both like going underwater and all my cells rearranging themselves. I was pulled apart, smashed back together, and then dunked under the pressure of a million tons of universe. But when I opened my eyes and gasped for air, I was laying on a rock ledge that wasn't at all familiar. I was planning on yelling something stupid before I even had a chance to look up, but a strong hand on my arm pulled me--let's be honest--dragged me away from the edge.

 

"What the--" Nayeon clamped her hand over my mouth and pressed us up against a stone column. It wasn't the usual grey and black marble from the interior of the temple either. It was a rusty green color that came away like sand when we rubbed up against it. I struggled against her hold for a moment because it felt like she was going to suffocate me to death when I saw it.

 

Them.

 

We weren't in the Mind temple anymore.

  
  
  


~

  
  
  


Kyulkyung jogged to the end of the hallway with Jeno, not at all chafed by his lack of comforting presence. When they reached the end of their bright tunnel, they found it split off in two more directions. In the ceiling, little holes had been punched in the marble to let the light in.

 

"I can see the sky," Kyulkyung exclaimed and took the right turn that angled slightly up.

 

"Why are we climbing?" Jeno muttered to himself.

 

"Maybe the Mind temple is like the Healing temple: it goes up instead of out." Jeno seemed to accept this answer as they continued on.

 

At the top of the incline was a sharp left, and Kyulkyung ran for it. Jeno had to jog just to keep up with her, but she stopped short at the entrance and he nearly barreled over her.

 

Before them was...air. Air and a slender marble bridge that stretched over a hundred foot chasm to the rest of the mountain below. The temple before them was astounding in its grandeur, and the little bridge met the highest spire, where Jeno could see another passage, presumably down into the actual structure.

 

"I believe our answers lie through there." He said matter-of-factly and very lightly nudged Kyulkyung, but she felt like a statue. Down below, Jeno spotted two teeny-tiny robin's egg blue robes scamper across the open space from the edge of the mountain to the wall of the carved out temple. "Look, there are the others." He pointed, but when he glanced around to see if Kyulkyung looked, he found her eyes screwed shut, her hands planted into the rock on either side of them, and her knees wobbling. "Are you afraid of heights?"

 

"No!" Kyulkyung snapped.

 

"Then..."

 

"There's just a lot of nothing and I don't want to die!" Her voice was swallowed by a gust of wind that whipped by and she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter.

 

"Thinking you'll be dead soon is the most important tool you'll ever encounter to help make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important." Jeno recited one of his favorite sonnets, but Kyulkyung didn't feel like being preached to.

 

"Will you not quote things at me right now?"

 

"We could always go back down, take more time, risk not learning what we came here to learn." He offered, and she turned her face to him for the sole purpose of glaring.

 

"Or?"

 

"Or you can feel the fear...and then go anyway." He said from behind her, and then shoved hard, breaking her grip on the door and forcing her feet to move. She took three stuttered steps from the door and frantically flapped her arms to try and find her balance.

 

"Be still, Healer."

 

"My name is Kyulkyung!"

 

"No, Kyulkyung is the Spitfire's friend. Kyulkyung shot monsters out of the sky from a window she had to climb. Kyulkyung is not afraid of heights." He listed, and she'd never hated someone so much in her life.

 

"I am not afraid of heights!" She screamed and then turned to the bridge and stopped across, barely registering the impending doom looming just underfoot. When she reached the other side, she turned to give Jeno the stink eye, but he wasn't there.

 

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Kyulkyung jumped around and caught the dying wisp of a portal.

 

"You asshole!" She barked, but the sound made the pigeons that nested in the tower fly off in fright. The flapping wings made them both pause for a long moment, listening just in case for the guttural sounds of monsters. When they knew they still weren't in any danger, Kyulkyung punched Jeno in the arm and shoved past him. A set of spiral marble stairs descended the tower and she was keen on leaving him behind. She could have sworn she heard him chuckle, but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of doing it in her face, so she started down the steps. A little way down, nestled at the back of a landing between stairs was a small wooden door with a bullring knob. Kyulkyung stopped to look at it, even as Jeno passed her and kept going.

 

"What do you think is in here?" She took a tentative step towards the door, and it loomed in her mind's eye. She couldn't explain it, but it felt like there was something important in there.

 

"It's probably a closet for their owlery. Come, the library would be on the ground floor." Jeno beckoned her to keep going, but she reached for the handle like she couldn't hear him. It felt like she was underwater, and bits of light swam behind her eyes like the sun on the surface of a river. All she had to do to breathe would be to open--

 

A loud CRASH snatched her hand and her attention away, and it only took her and Jeno shared glance for them to start running down the stairs, forgetting her pull to the door or the slight crack she'd opened it.

 


	12. Chapter 12

When I was 14, the abbots at the training temple were trying to teach us about sustainability, and how we needed to take extra care of the mountain we would be assigned to. She cracked open a beehive for us to observe, and I remember marveling at the inner structure. Little workers buzzing around frantically in a tumultuous dance only they could decipher. It looked like pandemonium to us, but the abbot termed it: controlled chaos. That is how I would describe the sight before Nayeon and I. A huge conical room made up of a hundred floors, hollowed out so that every floor could see into the others, except that every spare inch of space was covered with portals. Everywhere!

"Where are we?" I hissed as I pulled her hand away from my mouth.

"My best guess?" She whispered back and careened her neck to glance around our column. "We're in the Astral Temple."

"What? How?"

"We must have fallen through a portal somehow." She glanced up, and I followed her eyes. The stone ceiling above us shimmered with a slightly red hue, and I figured we might just be looking at the ceiling in the Mind Temple from the floor of the Astral Temple. 

"That pool thing?" I offered, and Nayeon shrugged. "How do we get back?" I asked, suddenly worried about Kyulkyung and Jeno being stuck in the Mind Temple looking for us. Before Nayeon could answer, a voice thundered down below us, and my curiosity overtook my need to hide.

“Spitfire! Spitfire, get back here!” Nayeon hissed as I crawled towards the edge of the floor. Down below us in the bowels of the hive, I spied seven portals filled with the shape of the gods I hadn’t been able to see at the battle of the Healing Temple. 

"It's time, Yixing!” A man boomed from his portal. “Show us your proof." 

“That’s Suho, the Water God.” Nayeon was suddenly in my ear and I jumped. I raised an eyebrow at her boldness, heaven forbid she has an ounce of inquisitiveness in her, but she just scowled at me. 

Suho seemed to be standing in front of a waterfall that cut through the tension in the room with a rainbow sheen. In a completely opposite fashion, Yixing was standing in a dark room that I found vaguely familiar. His hands were clasped behind his back and although he was as beautiful as the rumors said, his face was pinched with anger. He didn't look like the 'pure Yixing’ Kyulkyung had been so excited to serve. In response to the Water God, Yixing cleared his throat and announced:

"I have been to the Mind Temple, in search of the truth that many are still trying to avoid." He looked pointedly at each and every one of the portals that portrayed a god. "While there I encountered the spiritual energy of Luhan, the Mind God." Murmurs rose through the room, gods whispering about how that was possible or if Luhan was somehow still alive. In response, Yixing stepped to the side to reveal a shining wisp of gold flickering in mid-air. More gasps erupted around the room and I found Nayeon's eyes were just as wide as mine. 

"This spirit has bestowed upon me a vision of the destruction of its temple, and I saw our brother engulfed in flames." Cries of outrage and disbelief flooded the room, and I suddenly realized why Yixing's backdrop looked so familiar. Behind him, and through the whisper of gold, I caught sight of the fire emblem etched into smooth stone walls. He was still in the ice temple, in the sphere room! But before I could say anything, I felt a jerk in my spine, unlike anything I'd ever felt before. It was like someone had wrapped their fingers around the column of my neck and was jerking me up up up, eyes rolling back into my head until I took a gasping breath and managed to focus on Kyulkyung's face.

 

~

 

Kyulkyung ran down the steps, taking more than two at a time when she dared. Jeno, however, was far ahead of her. For someone so reserved and a downright ass, he was agile, and he knew better than to stop and wait for her. They reached the ground level and ogled at the massive open courtyard for half a second before continuing to find the source of the crash. In the middle of the hall sank a pit and a fresh cloud of dust, and in the bottom of the bowl, Kyulkyung caught sight of the bodies of her friends. She let out a strangled cry and nearly threw herself in, but Jeno grabbed her by the hips.

"Wait!"

"What do you mean wait? They need our help." She snarled and almost punched him again, but the little line between his eyes stopped her. He wasn't even looking at her. His eyes were focused on the floor and the bodies of their friends.

"They're not injured. Look at them." Kyulkyung did as she was told, although angrily, and saw that he was right. Her fiery friend was laying under Nayeon at a weird angle, but other than that there was no sign of trauma or blood. Their faces weren't twisted in pain or anguish, and she could clearly see the rise and fall of their chests. It just looked as if they were sleeping.

"What's going on?" Kyulkyung asked, regaining her composure and slapping Jeno's hands away. He retreated hastily like he hadn't actually meant to grab her, especially not there. He swallowed the particularly large lump in his throat before moving around the edge to the other side, gaze steadying on the rim.

"I believe I've read about something like this before."

"What is it?" Kyulkyung urged. Seeing him flustered was cute and all, but she was rather distracted by the possibility of losing her friend. 

"It's a Soul Patch. It was said that Luhan didn't like to be at the beck and call of the Astral Temple, so he devised his own way of teleporting, just with his soul." 

"So their bodies are here but," She started slowly.

"Their souls are somewhere else." Jeno tucked his hands behind him again and smoothed out his features. It was like his moment of exasperation had never happened, and they could go back to being their awkward team.

"How do we bring them back?" Kyulkyung asked, and at this Jeno hesitated. 

"I think we just...get them out." He replied sheepishly, and Kyulkyung reared.

"You think?!"

"Patches are supposed to be theoretical!” He fired back, and it was the most emotional thing she’d seen from him yet. “Luhan died almost a thousand years ago! How am I supposed to know?" She opened her mouth to spit some sort of venom back, but couldn’t think of anything to say. He was right, and she knew it. Everything about their little mission was theoretical and historical, and nobody had any idea what they were doing. That’s probably how the Spitfire fell into a hole, to begin with. With a heavy sigh, she stepped around the rim towards where Jeno was standing a little uneasy.

"If we kill them, I'm going to kill you..." She muttered, and he sneered.

"Healing Keepers are supposed to be soft-hearted."

"And Ice Keepers are supposed to be bored." She snapped back. They glared at each other for a long moment before Jeno moved around the circle to meet her, and she could tell what he was thinking without him even having to say it. Despite their constant bickering, it was apparent that they made a good team.

 

"Whatever you do, don't touch the inside of the pit." Jeno nodded to the border where intricate scribbling had been etched into the stone a millennium ago. With a nod, Kyulkyung got down on her belly and shimmying up to the edge as far as her abs would allow. Jeno bent with her and pressed his weight on the back of her thighs and calves. Kyulkyung let herself blush, but only because he couldn't see her face, and it wasn't like it was because it was Jeno. It was because there was a dude holding her down! His hand rested just below the curve of her rear, but she pushed that fact aside and tried to focus on how she was supposed to reach her friends without touching the walls. She tried to keep herself straight, but the pit was deep, and she would have to bend to be able to reach. Carefully she folded herself, flexing to keep from touching the sides, but only her fingertips could brush against Nayeon's sleeve.

"This isn't going to work," Kyulkyung grumbled, cursing her short arms. "I can't reach without leverage." Jeno quickly helped her up and they both looked around for something to help.

 

To her credit, Kyulkyung held her tongue the instant the idea came to her and instead, thought about what she'd say first. She didn't want to sound too smug when she looked over at Jeno and he was still at a loss. She didn't want to sound smug...but she failed.

"You're a teleporting Ice keeper...go find something to help!" Jeno’s lips parted and she felt a small gasp on her face like he couldn’t believe she’d thought of it before he did. So he could tease her with his powers but he forgets about them when they’re really useful? Ridiculous. The instant Kyulkyung was going to roll her eyes at him, Jeno was gone like the wind had suddenly whipped him away and no trace was left. She only looked back down at her friends in the pit, and--

"Here." There was no whoosh, no indication. He was just gone one moment, and there the next, only this new Jeno was holding a staff. Kyulkyung grabbed it with a grin and looked up at him through her lashes.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?"

 

~

 

I could feel Kyulkyung smooth her fingers over my hair as I tried to catch my breath. It felt like someone had stepped on me, knocking the wind out of me, and maybe breaking a few ribs in the process. Nayeon didn’t look any better off as Jeno not-so-carefully pulled her from the floor. 

"What the--" The earth keeper started on a rant but Jeno beat her to the punch. 

"I truly don't understand how this is possible. This portal should have died with its creator." He was staring hard at the bowl, the look of a man who was confused but a little fascinated, and I felt like I knew how he was going to spend the next few months. 

"If you mean Luhan,” I rasped, propping up on my elbows to look at him, “I can tell you how: he is alive and he is Yixing's proof." Jeno nearly dropped the long staff he’d used to fish us out of the pit like carp, and Kyulkyung nearly pushed me back down in surprise. 

"What? How?"

"I don't know...but Yixing and Luhan's spirit are in the Ice temple, and he said the Mind temple went up in flames," I explained what Nayeon and I had discovered.

"But it's didn't, it's not!” Kyulkyung cried, conflicted all over again that her god was the accuser of another. “There isn't a scratch on this temple!" 

Kyulkyung was right, as right as she had been at the beginning. This temple didn’t look like anything had happened to it. If anything, it simply looked abandoned, turned back to the mountain as some sort of offering. 

"What is a temple but a focal point?” Jeno said quietly, and we all turned to look at him. 

“Huh?” Kyulkyung asked, but he was too focused on frantically looking around to explain. 

“What is a focal point but a direction of intensity?” He asked, eyes focusing on something I had to twist around to see. Doors; big ones off to the east, behind a large round column. “What is intensity but the hunger of wisdom?” He ran to them before any of us could stop him, and started to push. While they didn’t budge, they didn’t seem locked.

“Help him!” I urged the other girls. “Go.” Kyulkyung quietly pushed my weight off her as she and Nayeon rushed over to assist the madly chanting Jeno. I pushed myself up as far as I could go, although it was only to sitting, and tried my best to essentially crawl over. 

This debilitating shit was seriously some of the most annoying-

“What is wisdom but...words." Jeno stuck the end of his staff between the two doors and used the leverage to pry them open. They creaked and it felt like the sound reverberated through the whole temple. We all froze just like every other time, and just like every other time, nothing came to eat us. Jeno, who seemed a bit out of his mind, pushed the door open further, causing a waterfall of ash and dirt to fall on their heads. I could smell it before anything else: the faint scent of burning. The three of them glanced in, but the room was dark and bottomless. 

“Come here, flame head.” Nayeon quickly came to pick me up.

“That’s a new one.” I snickered, but still threw my arms around her neck, and let her carry me to the doors. The closer we got, the more I was sure of what I was sensing: this room had burned.

 

We stepped in cautiously. The light from the door only stretched so far, and it was eery enough to keep us on our toes. 

“It smells like a campfire in here,” Kyulkyung said, and we all exchanged glances in the dark. Towards the entrance were old tables that had been overturned and charred black, and beyond them was too far for the light to reach. Without bothering to be told, I started to roll out a ball of fire in my palm and stretched my arm out to guide us. It illuminated stacks and rows of cases, all torched and crumbling, remnants of a time gone by rotting on their shelves. 

“It’s the library.” I thought Jeno was going to have a panic attack as he stumbled to one of the tables and ran his fingers over the husk of a book that used to be there. “It’s been incinerated.” 

“And he saw their brother engulfed in flames..." I whispered, dread creeping up my spine. 

“So it’s true?” Kyulkyung’s expression crumbled. “Chanyeol really made the temples go dark?” 

“Something about this still doesn’t feel right.” I voiced. There was still a nagging feeling in my chest, that even though the evidence was pointing to him, it was also concealing something else. It was just like Nayeon had said: Fire was the only true destructive element. What better way to cover one's tracks than point the finger at someone else. 

But of course...it could all just be wishful thinking. 

Jeno glided from one memory to another, ghosting over them, possibly even mourning over them, until his random shuffle took him to another door off to the side, partially hidden behind a collapsed bookcase. It opened easily under his push and revealed a small office that hadn’t been quite so decimated by the fire.

“Look at this.” We heard him call, and I politely pointed Nayeon in that direction. She still grumbled and I’m sure there was something in there about her bucking me off sooner rather than later, but she still went where he’d called. We found him standing in front of a small table, holding a book that could still keep its shape. 

“These aren’t so bad,” Kyulkyung mumbled even as she barely touched a scroll and it disintegrated instantly. 

“This one…” Jeno trailed off, holding the tome delicately as if it might blow away with just his breath--which it very well might. “It’s in Luhan’s hand.” 

“Live Luhan or spirit orb Luhan?” I asked, and Nayeon snorted (although Jeno glared daggers at her as she did). 

“It’s his journal.” Jeno went on, “From what I can tell, he was reporting on something.” 

“Reporting on something?” Kyulkyung went in and leaned over his arm, her hair falling over his shoulder. My eyebrows shot up at how friendly they seemed to be, but she didn’t even look up to see. My surprise turned into a pout. 

“A name keeps popping up.” Jeno looked at her, and then to us like we were a goddamn afterthought. “On this page alone is says it three or four times.”

“What’s the name?” I asked, working through this weird...whatever this was. 

“Leeteuk.” He frowned, lines creasing along his forehead. “Leeteuk...I feel like I’ve heard that name somewhere before.” 

 

Before anyone could think about this new information, the temple shifted. An audible groan whipped through the halls, and a wind from nowhere blew into the library kicking up the ash into our faces. I buried my head in the crook of Nayeon’s neck as she coughed, swatting at the space in front of her to try and clear the air. Jeno delicately placed the journal back on the table so he could hack his lungs out, and Kyulkyung wasn’t any better off. 

“What was that?” I wheezed as the air turned still again, and we all held our breaths, fearing what might come next. It was worse than we could have imagined. 

A neon green light zipped through the wall, heading straight for Nayeon and me. Her reflexes were, good and we jumped out of the way as the ball phased through the floor and disappeared. 

“Stray energies!” Nayeon cried, and like she’d unleashed the dam, a hundred more balls of light appeared out of nowhere. 

“Get us out of here!” I yelled as the four of us tore out of the small office back into the wider library. My head was spinning from inhaling the ashes and the twinkling lights flying past us. “Open a portal!” 

Jeno stretched out an arm in front of us and my room in the Ice temple yawned before us. 

“Wait, the book!” Kyulkyung cried, and turned around for it. 

“No! Kyulkyung! Come on!” I screamed at her as Nayeon dumped me on the bed and reached for Jeno as he jumped through. 

“Hurry Healer!” Jeno yelled as we watched Kyulkyung sprint back out of the office with the journal in her hands. With the energies illuminating behind her, she looked like some sort of angel, pink robes flying, face alive, and--

One of the orbs from above us pitched low and shot straight for her. “Kyulkyung!” Jeno cried, but it was too late to dodge. The spirit sank into her back as she fell through the portal and Jeno closed it. Kyulkyung toppled to the floor on top of the book, almost crushing it to dust. 

And she didn’t move. 


	13. Chapter 13

If I was being honest, there were very few memories I possessed that didn’t involve Kyulkyung at my side. She’d been a constant my whole entire life; bunking together, eating our meals together, training together, protecting each other. She was my opposite in pretty much every way, but that’s why we worked. I was strong and I was tenacious, but Kyulkyung was steady, and Kyulkyung was amicable. She beat me in every way that counted, and I figured she would keep on beating me until we were old and grey and had served our gods thoroughly. 

Until this shit happened. 

Until I was staring at her lying face down on my floor, not moving, not breathing, still, which was so very unlike her. 

“Kyulkyung?” I breathed out. Nayeon had slung me on the bed like an afterthought, and I crawled to the edge, feeling like it was a threshold, and on the other side, everything was going to be different.

I couldn’t move, because this wasn’t my role. Kyulkyung was the healer, Kyulkyung was the caretaker. I didn’t know how to sooth or nurture. I knew how to light things on fire, and I knew how to shut down the part of my brain that told me that I probably just got my best friend killed. “Kyulkyung!” 

I launched myself off the bed, cliff diving through that threshold because if Kyulkyung was at the bottom, there was nothing that would stop me. Not even that damn barrier of the unknown. Jeno was on his knees beside her immediately, devotedly gathering up her limp shoulders and turning her over to face us. I took her small frame from him and held her in my lap like she’d held me when they’d pulled us out of that damn fishbowl, stroking her hair and whispering pleas against the side of her head because I wasn’t even sure how to check her pulse. 

Jeno knew though, and he pressed his fingers to her wrist, concentrating like it was the last thing he’d do. Nayeon took a step back, a step away, as she knew better than to utter a single word to me right then. I would have popped off, exploding something that probably wasn’t replaceable and she knew it. 

It took an agonizingly long amount of time for her to wake up, but when she did, Kyulkyung's eyes slid open easily and it was as unceremonious as ever.

"What happened?" She asked lightly, sitting up out of my hold, looking between the concerned faces that bunched around her. "Why do you look like I died?"

"I thought you had!" I yelled and grabbed her again, crushing her in my arms until I could feel her pulse as my own and I knew for sure that she was okay. Jeno uncharacteristically pried us apart with small nudges, before examining Kyulkyung himself. He turned her face this way and that, gently touching the soft parts of her neck, more sensing than feeling if there was anything wrong. In the end, he frowned and dropped his hands in his lap.

"Do you feel anything?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary." Kyulkyung shrugged, taking Nayeon's hand when she offered to help her off the floor. She didn't offer to help me...just saying. "Why? What happened?" Kyulkyung asked.

"You were hit by a stray energy," Nayeon informed her as bluntly as ever, but Kyulkyung didn't flinch.

"Am I going to turn into a monster?" Her eyes were big and guileless and looked completely unconcerned with the answer to her question. I used her as leverage to climb back on the bed, the inconvenient disconnect between my muscles ignored for the moment.

"No more than you already are." Jeno shrugged, and my head whipped around to look at him.

"Jeno!" I snapped, but he knew better than to be afraid when I couldn't exactly launch myself at him. Instead, his eyes lingered on the space where Kyulkyung had landed, namely on the black and grey chaff that was left in the wake of her falling on the journal she'd risked her life for.

"You obliterated the book." Everyone else's eyes followed his to the smear, and it was the sight of her misstep that finally had Kyulkyung fluster.

"...I'm sorry." She whispered, and I grabbed her hand instinctively. "I thought it would give us the answers we were looking for. I didn't mean to..." Her face fell into a pout and my chest wrenched. She was seriously going to kill me today, scaring me to death and then breaking my heart in the next instant.

"I suppose all that matters is that you're safe and not transforming into anything more grotesque than normal," Jeno said casually, and this time even Nayeon raised an eyebrow.

"Holy shit Jeno, chill." The rapidly blushing Astral keeper glanced between us three before clearing his throat and lacing his fingers behind his back. He looked like the very first time I'd met him, swelling in Minseok's shadow, and the brain behind everything. I didn't realize until now how much I preferred this weird Kyulkyung version of him as opposed to my not very pleasant 'face-in-snow' first impression.

"If you'll excuse me." He coughed, and then without waiting for anyone else to speak, blinked out of existence. For someone who said he barely ever used his powers, he sure was utilizing them now. The three of us stared at the space where he'd been, all probably wondering the same thing, but it was Nayeon who turned to Kyulkyung and asked,

"What the hell did you do to him?" She flopped down on the bed with me and let out a sigh that was more like a groan.

"I have no idea."

~

Kyulkyung was never one to complain, even when there was a dull ache at the base of her skull that throbbed whenever she moved her eyes. She never felt compelled to express her discomfort, not when there were so many more unfortunate souls than her. That didn’t mean she never got even though, but justice took time and energy, and right then, Kyulkyung was slowly sinking into the blankets draped over her friend’s bed, content to sleep for a week after their little adventure. Nayeon stoked up a fire, using the point of her pick as a poker. The hearth heated the whole room quickly and the light from the flames bounced against the uneven surface of the rock walls. It felt haunting, and comfortable, curled up against her friend in the natural palette of the earth. Warm browns and dark greys draped over her, easing the tension of being knocked unconscious. She ignored the pain, ignored how her friend's hands that were supposed to be comforting were ice cold, ignored the pit in her stomach whose name just happened to be Jeno, and just…

Drifted. 

Eyes closed, breath even, mind clear, Kyulkyung dreamt of how it used to be, how small and naive she’d been. What a blissful life of ignorance she longed for. The training temple with its sturdy familiar walls, a content goal to strive for, the healing abbot's golden calipers, the subtle snick of arrows released from her bow. She missed the consistency, the safety. 

Kyulkyung’s eyes lazed open and she gazed at her best friend. She missed her most of all. Not this endangered fragile version, but the tough, funny, snarky girl Kyulkyung had grown up with. Even though she never expressed it, Kyulkyung could tell she was very bitter about her new disability. She looked down at their intertwined legs, half hidden by the thick fur blanket stolen from a grizzly bear. If only she could figure out how to make her legs work again. What kind of healer was she that she couldn’t even treat her best friend? 

In her drowsy semi-sleep state, her eyes strayed back across the room only to snag on the table and the remnants of the book she’d accidentally destroyed. Floating above and around the husk were hazy green lines that sizzled in the air. Those were definitely new, but...the color was all wrong, the bright dark green contradicting her paradise of warm tones. And she knew for sure she was dreaming when a small opaque character appeared in the corners of the intersecting lines. She vaguely recognized them as letters of the dead language her abbot had accused her of neglecting. She figured sleepily that if it was dead already, she could risk neglecting it. But, if only to prove him wrong, she squinted so she could focus on the form. 

“Aevum.” She whispered, accidentally summoning the attention of the other two girls. 

“Hmm?” Her friend asked. Kyulkyung felt like she should explain, but she wasn’t even sure what she was looking at. This was just a dream, wasn’t it?

“The energy in the book,” Kyulkyung fumbled over her explanation, “it says, ‘aevum’.” 

“What are you talking about? What energy?” Her fire heart asked, a little more frantically following Kyulkyung’s line of sight. She sat up straighter, fumbling Kyulkyung out of her comfortable position of using her as a pillow, and that was enough to make her doubt her own perception. 

“Do you not see the lines?” She asked, sitting up herself and rubbing her eyes with a fist. Even after pressing her eyeballs into the back of her head, when she looked again, the net around the book was still there, rotating harmlessly. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Her friend reached for her carefully but didn’t touch her, like she thought Kyulkyung might break if she did. 

“Is she hallucinating?” Nayeon asked overhead like Kyulkyung wasn’t even there, which made her mad, and she did nothing to reign in her typical clapback. 

“She,” She snapped and climbed off the bed, stalking over to the book corpse, “is not hallucinating. You are just not looking!” 

She reached out to touch the lines if only to point them out to the girls who hadn’t noticed them, but the moment her finger broke through the hazy light, it seemed to snatch on to her, like some unseen hand that had been waiting for her, a hare caught in a trap. 

~

The moment Kyulkyung’s hand touched the book, a pulse shook the whole mountain, radiating from her at its center. It wasn't the kind of quake that disturbed the dust on the walls or the snow on the cliff face, it felt more like a wave going through my very soul; some long slumbering energy that had suddenly woken up, and every person in the mountain got to experience its invigoration. I clutched my chest and gasped because the feeling washing over me was similar to that dunked underwater feeling of coming out of the soul patch. 

"Kyulkyung?" I whimpered, hoping maybe she would turn around when she heard the bewilderment in my voice. But she didn't move. "Kyulkyung?" She stood frozen with her back to me, and I couldn't see what stopped her, but Nayeon could. Nayeon who was still on her feet by the fireplace, her eyes glazed over and staring at whatever Kyulkyung had done on the table. I crawled to the end of the bed to get a better view of what had them suspended but then regretted it. 

Kyulkyung's arm was outstretched to the book, and just like she'd said, channels of dark green energy were swirling around the husk and up around her wrist. Symbols in a language I didn't know twisted across the burnt pages, threading up into her fingers like fine hairs. Her eyes seemed dull and lifeless, and no matter how many times I called out to her, she never responded. 

My bedroom door flew open just as I was about to try my legs and grab for her. Maybe I could just fall on her? Like that would help at all. But Jeno stood at the entry, bracing against both sides like he'd meant to rush in, but when he saw what was happening, had to stop himself. His usually stoic face flushed with a hundred different expressions, before settling on mortified and reaching for Kyulkyung. His fingers were a hair's breadth away from the pink fabric of her robe when her head suddenly snapped to the side to look at him, eyes suffused with emerald light. 

"Don't." It wasn't just her voice, but a hundred different voices and that single word rattled around the room to the point that I had to cover my ears. Nayeon's knees buckled, and Jeno snatched his hand, nearly throwing himself back out the door. 

"Spitfire?" Jeno whipped his eyes to me like I would have the answers for what was going on, but I scrambled to even orient myself. 

"It's the book!" I yelled, even though I had no idea if that was true or not. 

“Ahh, the book…” Kyulkyung rumbled in her transcendental voice, turning her attention back to the journal. “Luhan left the answers. You are the first to find them, XĪngĀn.” A small smile graced her lips before she jerked her arm, forming a seal with her fingers and then arcing from right to left. As she moved, the black husk of the book slowly started to rebuild itself, as if it were taking the matter from the room and replacing what it had lost. The char melted away to reveal a red leather cover that looked loved and worn. When she’d finished the arc, the journal was in perfect condition, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. 

“Did she…” Jeno’s face was a mix between mesmerized and nauseous as he watched from the door, “did she just turn back time?” 

“Now for you, firekeeper.” Kyulkyung turned sharply to where I sat on the bed and zeroed her green eyes at me. 

“What? Me? Kyulkyung!” I was a deer caught in lamp lights, unable to move away or defend myself. I couldn’t very well hit her! She was my best friend! 

“Your soul must blaze brightly if you are to stave off the coming winter.” She sang as she extended her arm to me, still adorned with the bright swirl of energy. I crawled up as far as I could on the bed until my back hit the wall. Just before she could reach and touch me, a green ring of light appeared around me. It was like a hoop of some sort, and when I looked at it, I felt the particular sensation of reminiscing, as if my whole life was playing out before my eyes. And then Kyulkyung grabbed it, and my heart lurched into my throat. 

From the tip of my toes to the hair on my head, every inch of me buzzed with a flush of heat and then cold sweats. Air caught in my throat as I tried to gasp through the feeling, but nothing about me was working, nothing about me was even me anymore. My nerves were on fire--no, they were so cold it burned. Fog passed through my lips that I could have mistaken for my soul as it felt like I was being entombed in a blanket of winter.

And then--

It was all gone. It was done. 

Kyulkyung pulled her hand back and air rushed into my lungs with the force of a punch. I doubled over and heaved, taking in big shuddering gulps, my brain dizzy and my vision blurred. 

“There,” Kyulkyung nodded slowly, “you are saved now.”

“What did you do to her?” Jeno demanded although he didn’t move from his post at the door.

“I’ve restored her.”

If I hadn’t been breathing so deeply, I might have noticed the warm tingling sensation that was running down my legs. Energy and stamina, and a practiced stretch. If I hadn’t been suffocating, I would have already known that I could walk again, that I could fight again, that my fire was back. If I’d cared about myself at all at that moment…

But I didn’t. All I cared about was--

“Kyulkyung.” My lungs felt full and powerful. There was no quiver in my voice, no hesitation. Kyulkyung turned back to me with that same small smile from before. 

“I’m leaving my daughter to you. I would tell you to take care of her, but you’ve been doing so your whole life.” 

“Your daughter?” Nayeon stammered. I was never going to forgive her for not coming to my rescue just now, but she had a more pressing point. 

“I miss her as we pass through the tunnel of time; I gave it back again, still in her memory; A lovely voice, eyes that look like dawn; Dazzling golden sunshine pours; You shine brightly; See it clearly in my eyes…” Kyulkyung sang, her hands curling as she lifted them again, the green energy blinking out of existence.

“Who are you?” I couldn’t help but whisper. There was just no way this was Kyulkyung. She had to be possessed by that energy that hit her.

“Before the world that was asleep; I want to walk along the way; A beautiful night.” A hundred voices harmonized among themselves, swelling around my room before Kyulkyung shut her glowing green eyes…

And collapsed. 

No one moved for a long moment, unsure of what to do or say. If I lept off the bed again would something different happen this time? Was the spirit gone, or had Kyulkyung’s body just given out? 

“What just happened?” Nayeon, always the first to break the silence. Her eyes were huge as she stared at Kyulkyung’s form laying on the floor. She probably thought that if she blinked, something else miraculous would happen. Something none of us were prepared for. Not that we were prepared for any of what just happened, but...

“I think Kyulkyung just created a sonnet,” Jeno answered, and with that esoteric declaration, the room fell silent again. This time if only to relish the sound of her soft sweet breathing.    
  



	14. Chapter 14

I love to run. I don’t know if I ever told my god that, or if I had to, but no matter what my daily life turned out to be, there used to be nothing that could stop me from stretching my legs. Even after training, or after studying for hours, or after meals, or in the dead of winter. I wanted to fly down the path that led to the little lake by the training monastery and pretend that I was one with Yifan and that if I was fast enough, I could take off.

 

After coming to Tenebros and being crippled by ‘the truth’ as Minseok liked to call it, the one thing I forgot to miss was how much I wanted to run. But it was the first thing I remembered when I stood from my bed after being ‘healed’ by Kyulkyung. There was no hesitance in it when I got up on my own for the first time in days. It was like I knew without a shadow of a doubt that my legs would support me. I wasn’t tired or achy, and the mere thought of using my fire didn’t exhaust me. In fact, I could feel it simmering away under my skin. Since the first time I’d used my power, there hadn’t been a moment when it didn’t drain me. Now, after whatever Kyulkyung did to me, I felt more like a god than ever.

 

So after Nayeon and I picked Kyulkyung up off the floor and buried her under the furs of my bed, I took a lap. I invited them along because frankly Nayeon looked like she was going to pass out, and Jeno...I couldn’t figure out what Jeno looked like. She accepted, he didn’t.

  


Nayeon and I sprinted full speed through the mountain, passing fellow ice and healing keepers alike, all the way out to the entrance where we could see our breath, and then further still down to the snow bank that didn’t turn my skin blue just by looking at it. In the back of my head, I knew it should have piqued my interest, that Yixing and the healing keepers were still at Tenebros, or where Minseok had been during the meeting of the gods. I remember looking, but I never caught sight of his sharp angles. Oddly enough, I did find myself missing him and that mischievous grin he shot me as he stole Sehun’s power and tore open the sky.

 

“I haven’t run like that in ages!” Nayeon huffed, her breath catching the cold wind, fogging at her lips. I grinned at her because I was feeling very much the same way, enjoying the thrum of blood in my veins. She was quiet after that as we stood side by side, staring over a cliff that led further north into the range.

 

“What did she do to you?” She finally asked, and I caught her watching the way I strode over to the snow and started to scoop it up. The ice on my fingers was cold, but it wasn’t unbearable. It was actually refreshing.

 

“I guess she fixed me.” I shrugged, balling up the snow in my hands. I didn’t want to think about what just happened, not about how my best friend was possessed, not about the implications of being able to walk again, not about Luhan, or Yixing, or Chanyeol, or Minseok...Xiumin. The only thing I wanted on my mind was the pulse of my legs striding up the path back to Nayeon.

 

“But how?” She pressed, reminding me that contrary to popular belief, Nayeon did have a curious bone in her body.

 

“I have no idea.” Was all I said, and then debated whether or not to throw the snowball at her face. She'd kill me, or she would at least try. We were probably evenly matched right now.

 

“If she really turned back time on the journal, that means--” She suddenly jumped down my throat with implications, and my arm didn't hold back as I chucked the ice at her. It smacked her right in the shoulder and she hiccupped mid-word. I hid behind the grin on my face, pretending I was being sneaky when all I really was...was scared to hear what she had to say.

 

“We don’t have any idea what it means.” I reminded her brightly and then bent down to reload. She wiped the snow off her shoulder with little care, stabbing me with a look that if I did it again, I would really be sorry.

 

“So let’s go? Let’s figure it out.” She jerked her head back the way we'd come, towards the entrance to the temple. I followed her gaze and then swept my eyes over her, wondering when we'd traded places.

 

“Wasn’t it you who said we shouldn’t be meddling in celestial business?” I asked, using her own chide against her.

 

Her face deadpanned in a way that felt condescending. “Spitfire..." Was all she said, but I shook my head like a child and pushed further down the path. "Spitfire!" She called after me, and even with the stinging wind in my ears, I could hear the crunch of her feet behind me. She wasn't going to let this go. "You started this, you have to see it through!”

 

“See it through to where? A wheelchair?” I barked back and vaulted over a stone as large as one of those monsters we'd fought. Gods, if I had been like this when I faced them? There would have been no need to call on the other gods. I could have saved that whole mountain by myself! I could have spared everyone...even Chanyeol.

 

“I can’t believe it!" Something hard and sharp connected with the back of my head, throwing me off balance and sending me careening face first into the snow. "You’re scared!” As quick as I'd gone down I scrambled to my feet and spun around to face her. She was still panting, fog brushing past her lips in big sprays, and there was a challenge on her face that made me unexplainably mad.

 

“What do I have to be scared of?" I snapped, scooping down for more snow, "I could light this whole mountain on fire!”

 

“Yeah, now." She shrugged and started to circle me, "But not ten minutes ago." I straightened to fire off another snowball, but she had another already primed and used it to knock my ball out of my hand. I openly glared at her as she tossed one more ball in the air, just to prove a point. "You’re scared of being stuck to my back for the rest of your life.”

 

“And you’re not scared of that?” I growled, hating that fact that she knew exactly what was going on in my head, hating that she could probably smell my fear of being forced to live as a cripple.

 

“Something is happening, you said so yourself. Hell, you proved it.” She waved her hands through the air, exasperation clear in her hands, “You can’t stop halfway just because you got your legs back.” She tried to sound reasonable, but I let out a bitter laugh at the mere thought of it.

 

“You try losing the only thing that made you special!" The words left my mouth before I could stop them. They were definitely not what I was going for in this particular argument. I wanted to sound smart and adult-like, but the only thing I accomplished was admitting I was too scared of being normal again. "Before I was a fire...whatever the hell I am, I was the strongest, the fastest. I didn’t back down from a fight, because I knew I would always win. You said Minseok needed a destroyer, and he picked me! So don’t you mock me when I’m at my prime.” I finished because hell, I was already this far. Might as well drive myself all the way down.

 

“Minseok didn’t pick you because you were the best. That’s not how he works.” Nayeon acted as if my reasons weren't stupid, as if my fears were justified. The only thing her tone did tend to mock was how I continuously handled myself.

 

“Right, fire in my soul, or whatever,” I grumbled and turned to stalk away from her, but she wouldn't let it rest.

 

“That’s just bullshit he spouts.” She took a step to follow me down the path again, to follow me off the damn mountain I bet. She wasn't going to let me run.

 

“Then why?” I rounded on her again, suddenly tired of this charade. I didn't want to be the responsible one, couldn't she see that? I didn't want to save the world! I was selfish! I just wanted to save my legs...and Kyulkyung...and Minseok...and maybe Chanyeol if I had the time. Gods...

 

“I don’t know why fireball. All I know is that its fate.” She crossed her arms, and it had me scowling even deeper.

 

“That’s not good enough.”

 

“Is that why you’re bailing?" She raised an eyebrow at me, and as much as I wanted to shrink under it, I refused to let myself. "Because if there’s no special reason he picked you, that means you’re not good enough no matter what?” Her words felt scandalized. I ignored her statement and it's validity, knowing it was stupid, it was all stupid. I was a keeper. I'd prepared my whole life to serve my god, and even though I accepted Xiumin as my god, I was throwing a fit because of the gift he'd given me.

 

“I am not bailing. I just...needed a minute.” I replied weakly.

 

“Then take it. And then get your fiery ass back in that mountain because we have a god a save.” She pointed back at the temple. I followed her line to the door that was hard to see through the snow, but standing under the outcropping were robin's egg blue and pink robes. Ice and Healing keepers hanging out together because of something that I had a hand in.

Nayeon was right, now was not the time for me to curl up with my insecurities. We had to figure out how to save Chanyeol. Because...I had the time. And I had my legs. And what else was I supposed to do with them? Other than run…headlong into danger.

She started back up the path, apparently content with my lack of response, but there was still a question that lingered at the back of my mind, and now felt like the only time I would ever be able to ask.

 

“Nayeon…”

 

“What?” She turned with a snap, but I didn't flinch.

 

“Didn’t you ever try to leave?” I recalled how mellow she’d been when I asked her if I could leave the first time like it happened all the time. It made me wonder if she’d ever taken the same journey. She studied me hard for a moment or two before admitting,

 

“I got all the way to Kyungsoo’s feet before turning back.”

 

“Why did you?” I asked, not sure what I was going to find in her answer. It sure as hell wasn’t going to bring me any closure, not when I’d apparently resigned myself to the same fate as her.

 

“Because Minseok needed me. Kyungsoo didn’t.”

 

“Did he tell you why he picked you?” I don't know why this was such a thing to me, but it was. Nayeon seemed to sense that too because she shrugged and turned around, continuing up the path.

 

“...because I needed him just as much.”

 

* * *

 

When we returned to my room, we found Jeno perched heavily on the side of the bed, smoothing his fingers over Kyulkyung's hand, the journal propped up against her frame like she was a shelf. He was unconcernedly flicking the pages, barely having time to read half before moving on. He’d probably read the whole thing already and was going back for the good bits. He was nose deep in the throes of text when Nayeon snapped in his face to bring him back to reality.

"Find anything interesting, bookworm?" She asked, rounding the table to settle herself on the little stool by the fire.

"At least I can read, rock golem." He clapped back instantly, and I was glad they were their normal selves at least.

“Hey now,” I smirked as Jeno got up to indulge the earth keeper and I took his place at Kyulkyung's side. “That’s insulting to golems.” I adjusted Kyulkyung’s blanket and ran my hand over her hair, keeping my gaze on her even as Nayeon scoffed, feigning offense. The two of them bickered for a moment more before I heard Nayeon kick his chair hard, an informal command to fill them in on anything he’d learned. Jeno sneered at her imprudence before turning his attention to the journal and picking it up like it was precious.

"As I originally proposed, this journal belonged to Luhan."

"Gold star, highbrow." Nayeon's sarcasm snapped at Jeno, but he ignored it and continued on.

"And Luhan was investigating the limitations of his power. Specifically in respect to Tenebros."

I interjected with, "What does that mean?"

Jeno sighed and fumbled like he was searching for an explanation that my far less educated mind could grasp. He settled on, "In short, Luhan was investigating the Ice God."

There was a beat of silence before Nayeon asked, confused, "Minseok?"

"This was nine hundred years ago, dunderhead!" Jeno popped off, shooting her with a stinging glare. "The Ice God at the time was called Siwon."

 

There were too many names being thrown around. The history was beginning to get jumbled in my brain and I had to ask, "Wait... What about the other name you said, the one you said it listed a bunch of times. Leeteuk?"

I could tell that we were testing Jeno's patience, but he took a deep breath before grinding out, "Leeteuk was Siwon's fire keeper, and according to this, his best friend."

That small addition connected the dots in my head. "So Leeteuk was the one the warming tonic was originally created for. Siwon commissioned Yixing to create it for his firekeeper."

Jeno nodded, a look of passable pleasure on his face, like his presence was somehow making me smarter. How patronizing.

"The journal begins platonically enough, just daily entries and personal information at first, and then out of the blue there's a whole page dedicated to Leeteuk appearing at the Mind temple to seek out Luhan's help."

"For what?" Logically, there could be countless reasons that someone would seek the Mind God's assistance. From what little the training abbots discussed with us about the fallen gods, Luhan had been the wisest of them all, having composed many of the most core sonnets. Jeno shrugged, shutting the journal with a slap, none of the before caution anywhere to be seen. He tossed the journal on the table and said, "Uncharacteristically, Luhan doesn't articulate very well on the matter, but it seemed to be very troubling." The sound of the book hitting the wood made a much louder thump than any of us had expected, and we nearly panicked when Kyulkyung shifted slightly under my hand...but she didn't wake.

 

Nayeon pulled at her fingers, one at a time, popping the knuckles. And when there was nothing left to dislocate, she stood from her stood and started to pace in front of the fire. She wasn't normally the ‘pacing’ type, so I assumed that her mind was racing so much it was making her restless.

"Why wouldn't Leeteuk go to his own god and best friend if something was wrong?"

"Well," Jeno watched her wearily, probably wondering if she was going to lash out at him for calling her names, "if we're throwing out conjecture, I would assume it was because whatever he told the Mind god was about the Ice god." He snickered at his obvious answer and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"This was right before the Mind temple went dark, right?" I asked, reaching out and beckoning him to hand me the journal he abandoned. He did so slowly, not taking his eyes off the pacing earth keeper. I wasn't actually looking for anything. Gods knew that I wouldn't find anything that Jeno hadn't already fully analyzed. It was more so to give myself something to fidget with that wasn’t Kyulkyung’s sleeping form. For a group of people meant to be trained to protect, we were a twitching disaster today.

Nayeon paused brows crashing down low, one of her short fingers tapping against her bottom lip. “Are we thinking Leeteuk and Luhan’s meeting had something to do with the dark temples? That, what, instead of Chanyeol, it was actually Siwon?”

Jeno quickly shook his head, "How would he have done killed all three of them without any of the other gods catching on? The Ice god holds no power of his own.”

Suddenly, a steamy room filled my vision and the memory of Minseok’s back to me.

_“But I don’t understand,” I considered as I took a tentative step towards him, “how do you kill a god?”_

_“Same way you kill mortals.” He seemed to yawn._

_“With a weapon.”_

I realized I had said out loud, and I glanced up to Jeno and Nayeon staring at me

The astral keeper spoke lowly like this conversation had taken a turn in the dark. "What...what was that, Spitfire?"

With a gulp, I muttered, "Minseok once told me that gods can fall as easily as mortals to the right weapon."

There was a heavy silence that lingered in the room after that, the ramifications of our discovery hard to ignore.

“There’s no way anyone could have figured this out with the journal...right?” Nayeon broke the silence, jarring Jeno and I like she’d shaken us.

“And there’s no way anyone could have recovered the journal without Kyulkyung bringing it back from dust,” Jeno added, glancing at the girl in the bed.

“And as far as we know, no one else has been possessed...right?” I finished off the catechism with a soft hum...as if to say,

Right?

“I guess it really was fate.” I heard Nayeon murmur under his breath, and the mere thought of fate stringing us along made me what to chuck the journal in the fire.

"There’s still too much unknown.” Jeno came raining down the realization party with his blessed logic, slapping his knees to cut through the silence. “We need to talk to someone who was there." He looked at us, waiting for us to comment, but Nayeon and I looked at each other like he’d lost his mind.

"Oh is that all?” I rolled my eyes and huffed, “We’re gonna just go talk to the gods? Admit that we snuck into a dark temple, compromised a keeper, stole a relic, and are undermining their investigation...Yeah, great plan.” Nayeon snapped her fingers and pointed at me, a smug look on her face, like I’d finally risen to her level of talking back to Jeno.

"They might talk to Kyulkyung." The astral keeper uttered but averted his eyes when I snapped my head back at him so fast my neck hurt.

“What? No!” I flared. “That’s not even an option!"

"Wait..." Nayeon held up her hands to break whatever glare I was sending the skulking boy, "there’s a god in Tenebros right now that was there."

We both turned to her and asked, “Who?” at the same time.

"Yixing--."

" _Luhan_." I interrupted her, eyes widening with the opportunity we’d almost missed. Nayeon fervently shook her head when she saw where my mind went. "No! No, Spitfire! I was talking about Lay!” But her designation fell on deaf ears. “Spitfire, that thing could kill you. Look what it did to Kyulkyung!" She pointed at my friend who was sleeping soundly in my bed, the steady rise and fall of her chest giving me hope. The spirit orb that hit her hadn’t killed her, it had empowered her.

I gestured to my mostly healthy form, looking at Nayeon boldly, "And look what she did to me. It's worth a shot."

"Minseok will never let you near that sphere room." She rebutted like she knew it was the best idea we had, but she was still unhappy with it.

Jeno made the comment under his breath of, "Is he even here?"

"He wasn't at the meeting in the Astral temple." I took his point as my own and threw it at Nayeon. We could both tell she didn't actually want to encourage this plan, but she did say, "You noticed that too?” Jeno scratched at his scalp in frustration, tugging on his dark hair in a manner that didn’t fit his scholarly personality.

“Plus, there’s the matter of the healing temple inhabitants still being at Tenerbos. Didn’t their temple clear when Yixing returned? Why haven't they returned?" A small part of me wanted to mention it might have been because I lit their entire mountain on fire and it might have been unlivable...but that couldn’t be the reason. Noooo.

Nayeon hissed through her teeth, a reluctant surrender, I grinned. What a trio we made.

"Whatever the reason, we have to lure Yixing out of the sphere room."

Sighing, Nayeon tapped the end of my bed with her fist. "Luckily, we have a very sick keeper in need of the touch of her god.”


	15. Chapter 15

The stone of the hallway was cool against my back as I pressed against it, crouched to avoid eye level, peeking around the curve of the wall. When I saw the coast was clear, I waved Jeno forward, who was hovering uncertainly behind Nayeon.

"Shouldn't I be the one to go in with you?" He argued for the tenth time, but Nayeon shushed him with a smack. We both knew he just wanted to see the spirit orb that was Luhan. But there was no urgency behind his whining, which also made me think that he was eager to get back to Kyulkyung's side as well. He should really get his priorities in order. At my urge though, he begrudgingly crept up beside me.

"Okay, as far as we know, Yixing is still in the sphere room. Let's go over the plan one more time." I whispered. Nayeon rolled her eyes so hard I thought they would roll right out of her head.

"Yes, lets. Let's go over the plan that's simply: distract the god that could save you, then touch the spiritual energy of a 900-year-old deity and hope it doesn't kill you."

"Which is why I am more--"

"Shut up!" We snapped at Jeno at the same time when he tried to interject again.

"We have been over this," I turned my attention back to Nayeon's unhappy face, suppressing the urge to roll my eyes out of my own head, "We all agreed that Yixing would never tell us the truth, so we have to ask Luhan. We have to find out what really happened, it's the only way to save Chanyeol."

"I know, I know." She sneered, crossing her arms defensively.

"And I need you to back me up, in case..." I trailed off because no one knew exactly what was going to happen. But I wanted it to be Nayeon. Jeno was fine and all, and he could teleport us away from danger, but in my gut, I knew that if I was in trouble, I wanted the earth Keeper to be there. I trusted her to be there.

Which annoyed me just as much as it reassured me.

"Let's just get this over with." She grumbled and shoved Jeno out into the corridor before he could protest. He shot her a betrayed face before righting and making his way to the door, resolute at least. He paused before the entrance, taking a deep breath before falling into character quite impressively. Bursting through the doors, I lost sight of him, but his voice carried on its echo as he yelled,

"Lord Lay! Thank the gods I've found you! It's Kyulkyung!" There was a beat of silence that passed before someone answered him, the voice higher and more regal than I'd imagined it would be.

"Who?"

I let out a snort that turned into a snicker that steadily grew until I felt Nayeon clamp her hand over my mouth so I wouldn't give us away. It was just too funny. I could absolutely imagine the look on Jeno's face at that moment! Aghast and bewildered. Yixing had never met Kyulkyung, he'd already gone off on his adventure when we were inducted to our Temples, so It made fine sense that he didn't know who she was, but I would bet five punches that Jeno had been blindsided by it none the less. I pressed Nayeon's hand harder over my mouth as I stifled my giggles, and when I looked at her, she was smirking. Probably more so at me than anything else but it didn't matter. The tension was finally easing.

"Kyulkyung...your Keeper?" We heard Jeno swallow thickly, and then I felt a little bad for laughing.

"Is there something wrong?" The voice asked, and we could tell the question was laced with a confused concern. Like Yixing was indeed worried about his Keeper, even though he didn't know who she was. That was the 'pure' Lay Kyulkyung had always bragged about, and I guess it was warranted. Even though he was accusing his brother of fratricide.

"She's...she's ill." Jeno waivered, and I held my breath under Nayeon's fingers. Jeno was one of those people who was too smart to know how to lie well. Because, why bother when you can win every argument with facts alone? But to our relief, Yixing didn't seem to catch on to the uneasiness with which the Astral Keeper fibbed.

And I mean...he wasn't entirely lying.

"Take me to her." Yixing insisted, causing Nayeon and I to back up around the corner to avoid being seen. Out of the line of sight, I heard two sets of footsteps slap against the stone until they were nothing but a distant echo in the hall. By the time the corridor was silent, I could still hear the loud thrum of my own blood in my ears, my heart pounding. Even as I stood and pushed Nayeon's hand away. Even as I tiptoed along the length of the wall to the room I'd found on my very first day in this Temple. Even in the silence, it felt like the universe was screaming, like the very energy that made me was vibrating in anticipation. Maybe it was nerves, maybe Nayeon's stupid warnings had gotten into my head more than I'd meant. Or maybe it truly was fate as she preached. But either way, no matter the din or the quiet, I pushed the door open and looked back at her.

"Stay here, and--"

"I've got your back, Spitfire." She cut me off, only meeting my eye for a second before glaring at the wall, chagrined.

I entered the sphere room with no further preamble because I wasn't any better with words than Nayeon was. The heavy things swung shut behind me with a thump, and then I was...alone.

The room was as I remembered it, a slate grey chiseled out of the mountain, etched with the crests of each Temple at waist height. While I recognized it from the portal in the Astral Temple, the golden glowing orb of Luhan was nowhere to be seen.

"Well?" I heard Nayeon mumbled through the crack in the door.

"I don't know yet." I hissed back, stepping to the middle of the room. While the walls and ceiling were smooth and circular, the floor only dipped a little, so not a perfect sphere. But you could tell where the center was, plum with the arch of the top, the stone worn smooth from constant use. I wondered distractedly if this was where Minseok and his Keepers meditated; if this was where Yixing was meditating. Figuring it was worth a shot, I nestled myself into the divot of the center, crossing my legs and resting my hands on my knees. This was never really my speed; sitting still, focusing. I knew my sonnets, but those were interesting. I could sing those forward and backward because they gave me a beginning and an end. But with meditation, the whole thing was supposed to be the beginning and the end...and that just never vibed with me. Most of the time, the abbots had to wake me up after I nodded off trying to concentrate a little too hard.

With a defeated sigh, I closed my eyes and tried to center myself like I'd been taught. The head abbot once described it as playing the harp; a harp with the strings of the universe. Once you find balance, you could glide your hand over the strings of energy, plucking each to find it's resonance.

The analogy never made sense to me, probably because I was too busy sleeping and I never managed to find my way into the universe's embrace. But this time was different, this time there was more at stake than my pride or the well-earned smack I'd get for falling asleep. Too many people were counting on me to find out the truth.

Huh...the truth, I wondered hazily as I slowed my breathing, inhaling through my nose and exhaling through my mouth as I'd been taught. All Minseok ever offered me was the truth.

Was this part of it?

Once, breathe. Twice, breathe. Thrice, breathe again and again. Until the room itself felt fuzzy and the sphere no longer felt like a room, but the crust of the earth and I was at its center, the core.

Did Xiumin know about this?

It was in this vapor that I first saw--felt--the strings. My eyes were closed, but my Mind was open, and they spun around me like a spider web.

There were four that stood out to my Minds eye: A red one, bright and hot, fiery as my soul; a dark green one that spiraled around the first, encircling it like a braid with a third blue one, more crystalline and fissured than the others; and lastly a yellow golden one, rich and soft. The last string stood apart from the others, less tangible, less...alive. There was no guessing, no uncertainty that this was the soul I was seeking. It was as if the haze of meditation had stripped away my usual countermeasures and anxieties, and all it left was real. So I reached for the golden thread with my soul, with my mind, with my heart, with my hand. Reaching with all that I was and with a pluck, the whole world shook. When I opened my eyes, still dull and cloudy, the golden orb of Luhan's spirit hovered expectantly before my fingertips, as if called.

The sudden memory of the spirit from the Mind Temple sinking into Kyulkyung's back stalled my reach, halting me a mere length from grasping what I came here for; for the truth. But the orb seemed to breathe in my apprehension, glowing brightly and then dimming with the tremble of my hand. It was being patient with me, I realized. Having waited 900 years, it didn't seem to Mind waiting until I understood that it wasn't going to hurt me. That the other spirit hadn't hurt Kyulkyung. That these energies weren't malicious...they were desperate. They needed someone to know the truth about what happened to them. How else would they ever be free?

With that at the forefront of my Mind, I ignored everything else and pushed on, caressing the face of the orb, letting its heat sink into my skin, and despite the sear I felt as it smoothed up my arm, radiating into my veins and bones, I didn't pull away. I couldn't.

The truth, Spitfire.

I came for the truth.

* * *

The aura given off by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh, and for the whole of his existence, Lay had been able to sense those of other people, seen as clearly as the clothes on their backs, an extra shroud of recognition. At one point, he couldn't really remember when, probably early on, he stopped looking at the faces of his people and just basked in their auras, their souls. The truly remarkable ones tended to glow with a warmth he craved, tinted by the color of their hearts. His Keepers, for example, were a wash of rose pink, fragrant and beautiful. He always chose healers who were pure-hearted, as pure-hearted as he wished to be. But his own soul had been tainted long ago, he knew.

He knew.

The gods tended to have distorted auras of disproportionate colors. Kai's, for example, was a slate grey but fluctuated with pigment whenever he was excited, like a rain cloud bursting with a rainbow. It was the opposite with Baekhyun who was blinding most of the time, except when something would happen to dampen his mood.

Lay saw everyone around him in hues, but it was like there were swatches missing from his spectrum, three in particular. And he had resigned himself to never seeing them again until he stepped hurriedly into the Ice Keeper's room and froze midstride.

Kyulkyung, the Keeper had said. Kyulkyung who was supposed to be a healer, a primrose, a blush. But instead, the girl laying on the bed was a brilliant forest green, shining as brightly as the day Lay lost his brother. He couldn't make himself move even if he wanted to, and he absolutely did not. Would the color disappear if he moved? Was it his imagination, or was she truly the shade of Tao?

"My Lord?" The Ice Keeper who'd retrieved him from his meditation spoke up behind him, his voice laced with confusion. His aura was a mute robin's egg blue, interlaced with tinges of sparkly grey. All the Ice Keepers were like that, Lay knew distantly. They were all combinations of what their soul longed for and what their purpose drove them to. The boy had an Astral soul, he was supposed to be calm and collected, yet he quietly hopped from foot to foot behind the god, like he was anxious. Like he cared a little too deeply. Kai had never been good at hiding things from his brothers, it's why he never bothered. So the fact that this boy, whose heart belonged to Kai, was nervous, and it was this boy who led Lay to the room filled with his dead brother's aura...

Something was very wrong.

"How did she become like this?" Lay finally spoke, not daring to look away from the girl in the bed. It was a loaded question. He wanted to know if this boy who was only capable of speaking the truth was going to try to lie to him.

"Honestly, my god?" The boy sounded flustered, "I don't really know."

Ahh, the truth. But a lie of omission, nonetheless.

"Where have you been?" The question was directed to the room, anyone was free to answer. But the only person Lay wanted to hear from was the girl--Tao. The fact that his brother had found a host in a female was hardly out of the ordinary. He tended to be flirtatious with any being, regardless of body.

"It was--"

"Did you venture to the Time Temple, Astral Keeper?" Lay barked over his shoulder to silence the boy, because what right did he have to speak now? "And you took one of my Keepers?" The general audacity was infuriating, despite the situation. How dare this boy endanger one of his pure roses?

"No! We--" He tried to explain, but Lay was too angry, too stung by the broken rules. The dark Temples were forbidden for a reason! It wasn't like the gods were hiding anything there, they were dangerous! And Keepers were fragile, so fragile. His roses in particular.

"Lying does not become you--" Lay tried to lash out, hoping to wound the ego of the Keeper, but it had the opposite effect as the boy had the gall to cut him off.

"That's fine because it isn't a lie."

Lay finally turned back to look at him then. A tanned boy, despite the cold and unforgiving climate of the Ice Temple, robin's egg blue robes well worn. He'd been a Keeper for a long time by the looks of it, longer than most if the rumors about the Ice Temple were true.

"Then explain," Lay said evenly.

"We went in search of the truth!" The boy grumbled, trying to compose himself back into a model Keeper, one that didn't argue with gods. "The one you say you found in Luhan." Lay flinched at the casual mention of his dead brother's name. Of course, the boy wouldn't understand, he wasn't there, hadn't even been alive. But even after 900 years, it still stung. The pain was still there, and the regret...

The regret was what singed Lay's soul the most. "Our Fire Keeper wanted to see the proof of Chanyeol's treachery for herself, so we traveled to the Mind Temple." The boy continued, and Lay's eyebrows knit together.

"The Mind Temple?"

"While we were there, we discovered Luhan's journal and Kyulkyung..." He trailed off, avoiding the god's piercing gaze.

"You found Tao...in the Mind Temple?" He couldn't even fathom. Why had Tao's spirit been in the Mind Temple? Why hadn't it appeared to him while he was there?

The boy cocked his head, hair tousled by the movement. He looked like a scrutinizing bird, one of the finches that perched on the cherry blossom trees on Lay's mountain. "Tao?" He asked, and the name sounded foreign on his tongue. Not wanting to dwell in that line of questioning, Lay cleared his throat and deflected.

"I searched the library of the Mind Temple for days. There was no journal." He turned back to the girl, Kyulkyung, Tao...She was sleeping peacefully, but within the color of her soul, he could see that her spirit was dim. Something was battling her internally, and his compulsion to heal thrashed against his chest. She needed him, she was his Keeper, he should be taking care of her...yet he couldn't bring himself to draw any closer.

"We found it in Luhan's private study, it was burnt to a crisp. I thought maybe I could reanimate it in a stable environment, but..." He hesitated as if he knew his next words would anger the god.

"But?" Lay urged.

"But before I could do anything, she turned back it's time, made it new again." The boy finished, grimacing at the alarmed look on Lay's face.

"This girl did?" He pointed at her.

"Yes."

"Was she herself?" He asked and the boy squinted at him in confusion. "Was she herself?!" Lay parroted, but the boy didn't jump at his snap. In the back of his Mind, Lay cursed Xiumin, annoyed that he raised Keepers with thick skin. It wasn't like Lay enjoyed the torment, but he was still rubbed wrong by this boy putting his beautiful Keeper in harm's way.

"No." The boy said plainly, tucking his hands behind his back. He was serene now, and to Lay, it felt like they had found even footing. "It was as if someone was speaking through her. They spoke of Kyulkyung as a daughter, they healed the Spitfire's legs, and then revived the journal for us as proof."

"Proof of what?"

"That it wasn't Chanyeol who killed off the gods." He said it so confidently that Lay bristled.

"Blasphemy." He snapped, finally taking steps towards the bed even though he didn't want to. His feet moved on their own, beckoned by the warmth of his brother's familiarity and the pining of years without him. Lay didn't realize until he was at her side, taking her small hand in his, that he was throwing all reservation out the window. "I saw the memory of his demise myself!" He squeezed his eyes shut at the memory that wasn't his. The wall of flame that had burned his eyes and made his hands numb for hours. "The library and journal were burnt beyond recognition. That is proof enough."

"If that was really the end of it, why would Tao go through the trouble?" The boy challenged but softly, like he was coaxing Lay to see reason, as if he was a frightened child, "If Luhan had given you everything, why would he warn us of the coming Winter?"

The condescension of it aside, the phrasing seemed wrong, and Lay pushed down his annoyance to turn back to the boy who refused to enter the room.

"...winter?"

"Whoever was controlling Kyulkyung told our Fire Keeper that she would need all her spirit for the coming winter." He supplied. There was a set to his jaw though that made Lay question himself.

"Need her...fire...Where is she?" The boy mentioned the Fire Keeper more than once. It was her idea, it was her action. She wanted to free Chanyeol, she didn't believe the proof. And on top of that, Tao had warned her specifically. Dread started to creep it's way up his arms as the boy's demeanor cracked.

"Why--"

"The Fire Keeper. Where is she?" Lay snapped, a little panicked, a little desperate.

"She's..." The boy dropped his gaze and Lay realized his mistake. The first inkling he'd had about the boy, about his deception had been correct. Robin's egg blue tinged with just a little bit of grey: the freedom to be too damn clever for his own good.

"Oh, what have you done?" Lay dropped Kyulkyung's hand and stepped back towards the door, feet frantic to return to the sphere room and summon his brother. But before he could leave, the boy stepped in his path. Not even to block him, just one step in his way.

"We did what we had to do to find the truth." He glared at his own feet, and even though they'd all but thrown his proof back in his face, Lay felt his anger wane, realized he wasn't even mad, he was solely worried. Entirely terrified of what they'd done.

"I hope the death of your friends is worth it." He tried to bark, but there was no bite.

"My friends are stronger than you think they are." The boy looked up at him fiercely, and in his gaze, Lay saw the determination of someone who believed in his family, just like he had...all those years ago.

"Nothing but the truth from the mouth of an Astral Keeper." Lay sighed and brushed past him down the hallway.

"I am an Ice Keeper, I serve Xiumin and no one else. You accused your brother of murder, and we meant to prove you wrong." The Keeper's voice boomed behind him, and each accusing echo was like a punch in the gut. Lay was already tired, already paled at the gravity of it, the truth.

He'd accused his brother...and he might have been wrong.

"And pray tell, Keeper...did you?"


	16. Chapter 16

Nayeon tapped her foot under the table nervously. The soft click click click of her shoe against the stone floor was the only sound in the otherwise suffocating room. She was more frustrated than she cared to admit, especially with a god at the table. Jeno had one bloody job! One! He was as useless as he was annoying. Which was to say: very. 

The Spitfire was sitting across from Nayeon at the small table in her chambers, barely making eye contact, barely even breathing. She seemed comatose walking ever since Lay pulled her out of the sphere room by force. She was awake, which Nayeon supposed was positive, but she hadn't spoken about what she saw, or acknowledged the god who huddled in the third chair like it pained him to do so. Jeno had been relegated to sitting on the end of the bed, fingers absently pulling at the fur blankets draped over Kyulkyung. The room had been silent for ages, and Nayeon was seriously about to yell just for the hell of it. 

Sighing didn't count. There'd been a whole heap of sighing on everyone's part. Lay circulated between staring at the Spitfire, staring at Kyulkyung in the bed, and then staring at the table and sighing in frustration. It reminded Nayeon of Minseok in a way; so tempted to speak, but knowing that it wouldn't do any good. That wasn't a Xiumin trait apparently. It wasn't even really a god thing, because Jeno was just as quiet in this tense room, and everyone knew he couldn't shut up.

Nayeon wondered absently how this had become her life: trapped in a celestial conspiracy and somehow the first one to drive conversations. If only those idiots at the training monastery could see her now.

"Spitfire," She mumbled, but the resulting echo made it seem like she did in fact yell. The girl didn't give any indication that she'd heard, and Nayeon had never been known for her patience. She kicked her under the table, drawing a harsh look from the Healing god but ignoring it. The fireball startled so severely that she nearly toppled the chair over, grabbing the edge of the table to steady herself before wincing again for good measure. "I'm talking to you flame head." Nayeon bit out, but only to get the ball rolling. The girl looked back at her in a daze, like she hadn't been there a second ago like they hadn't been sitting in an awkward silence for over an hour.

"S-Sorry," Her voice was hoarse although from what Nayeon didn't know.

"Care to share what happened?" She led, skipping over the shiver that was rippling over her companions skin. Belatedly, there was just a little bit of guilt bubbling up at the sight. Nayeon knew just how badly the spitfire hated being cold, and just how desperately she'd wanted to keep her fire in her soul. But after being ripped away from the spirit orb as she had been...it seemed as if whatever damage Kyulkyung's weird ass powers had healed, had resurfaced from the fracture.

"He..." The Spitfire started, but at the sound of her voice Lay tense and it caused her pause.

"Control yourself." Nayeon chided the god, and she did so boldly. This was his fault anyway, and he certainly wasn't her deity. She could be a little rude for the hell of it. He only shot her a look of unfiltered annoyance before reluctantly sitting back in his chair and giving the spitfire enough space to continue.

"He showed me." She forced out, like the words physically hurt her to do so.

"Showed you what?" Lay asked as gently as he could manage.

"Who killed him." She mumbled, smoothing her sweaty palms down the front of her robes. "Luhan showed me who killed him."

 

~

 

The ground beneath my feet felt as if it were real, solid, and the air around me shimmered with the glow of the morning sun. Dust motes drifted on the air in between the sunbeams, highlighting the old oak tables and bookcases scattered across the room. I was in the library of the mind temple...before. Young Keepers in dark mustard colored robes milled about amongst the stacks, hands busy with scrolls and books, not a care beyond the next passage of enlightenment. They flowed around me like I was a rock stuck in a river, and even when I reached for a young girl as she passed, she stepped out of my reach before I could touch her. It was like they didn't want me to break the illusion, this dream where they were the characters and I was the spectator. None of them met my gaze as they danced along the string of memories, but instead drew my eye to the small room off to the side that I already knew was Luhan's study. 

The door was cracked open and from within I could hear the faint sound of a melody being hummed. My feet took me to it without having to urge my muscles to work, and as I got closer, I could see a young man sitting at the desk, scribbling on a parchment with a long elegant quill. He was small in stature by the frame of his shoulders at least, and his hair was a honey brown that swept over his forehead. There was a permanent smirk on his mouth, and when I finally stepped into the room, his head snapped up to meet me.

"Keeper," He grinned, although I could see the surprise in the lines around his mouth. "What are you doing here?"

 

He was talking to me. Words stuck in my throat and died on my tongue. This was Luhan and he was talking to me. I opened my mouth to speak again, but instead of my bewildered voice, a deep timbre echoed from behind me.

"Lord Luhan...it's been a long time."

I spun around to find that I was nearly back-to-chest with a man in robin's egg blue robes. He was a whole head taller than me and my nose nearly brushed against the dip where his neck met his collarbones.

"What can I do for you, Leeteuk?" Luhan asked, and my head snapped around to look between the two of them. This was still a performance, a memory. I wasn't involved, yet I couldn't help but feel like I'd stumbled upon something private. In response to his prompt, Leeteuk sidestepped me and came in to sit in the small chair opposite the god’s desk. He dwarfed it like it'd been made for a child and it would collapse any second, but he seemed like he knew the position well and didn't mind.

 

"It's about...Siwon. About what we discussed last time." Leeteuk explained quietly. Luhan's face pinched in contemplation before he got up and came to close the door. I leaned against the wall by the frame, figuring if I got out of the way, it would keep the flow of the story going. But I couldn't help but catch the small look Luhan shot my way, almost like he could see me even when no one else could.

"I thought we agreed we would allow fate to destin our path on this matter," Luhan said quietly as he shut the door, sealing away any prying eyes or ears.

"I know what we decided, but..." Leeteuk seemed to shrink in on himself like he was ashamed of his words. "But it's gotten worse. He's...The things we spoke of in confidence, he's now preaching to the whole temple. And what really worries me is that some of my brothers...they agree." 

I couldn't help myself. 

I pushed away from the door, following Luhan back to his desk, circling around the other ice keeper so I could see his face. There was a warmth radiating from him, a fire simmering just below the surface of his skin. As if the heat roiled the way water did under a pond with a crust of ice. You could cover it, conceal it, but one crack and it would shatter, implode. In the small radius, I could feel his power, and yet he still shrank into himself. Luhan dropped heavily into his chair again, like the news he’d just been told was a burden to not only his mind but his shoulders. 

"I was afraid of this." Was all he said, but it still made Leeteuk fold nearly in half, resting his forehead on his knees, a long whine escaping the back of his throat.

"Please Lord Luhan, please." He begged, his mouth muffled by his robes. "Please make him see reason. I know he is not beyond redemption. Please, if you'll just--"

"You said you've spoken to him." Luhan gently interjected, getting up quickly and coming around to where the keeper was caving in on himself. He looked genuinely concerned, putting a light hand on his shoulder, and when Leeteuk nodded, Luhan sighed. "If he would not listen to you, his best friend, then he surely won't listen to his ge." There was a lilt to the word that I didn’t understand, and it reminded me of what Kyulkyung--the possessed version--had called us earlier. A different word in a language I didn’t know but still enjoyed hearing. 

"I can't let anything happen to him. It's my job to protect him!" Leeteuk groaned. Luhan contemplated this for a long moment, his long fingers massaging into Leeteuk's shoulder absently. Just as I was feeling like maybe I'd fallen out of the dream, Luhan blinked and then looked me dead in the eyes. I hiccupped at the sudden attention, but there was nothing behind me he could be staring at, I checked.

"I will do as much as I can from here. But it is up to you to keep him at bay until I am ready." His voiced lulled, both loud and soft at once. It was a command, it was a request, it was a plea. He was speaking to Leeteuk, but his words stirred something deep within me, like a childhood memory, fuzzy and sepia.

"Yes, my Lord."

"Yes, my Lord." Leeteuk and I said at the same time.

 

I blinked and the next moment I was standing in the rotunda of the mind temple, as empty as it had been the first time I'd been there. No keepers yearning for knowledge or Leeteuk seeking guidance. Not even the pigeons that nested in the high corners of the decorative wall ornament. I was by myself standing on the edge of the soul patch and for some reason, I couldn't fathom the depths of the loneliness I felt because of it. I clutched my chest, tears searing my lashes, and even though I could tell these feelings weren’t mine, the foreignness of them rubbing my heart raw, I still found myself sobbing regardless.

 

"Siwon!"

In slow motion, a man leaped from the depths of the bowl before me out of nowhere. He hovered in the air for a moment, our eyes locking. He had an oval face with eyes that were set a little too close together and a mouth that was turned down into a snarl. The creeping heat of his flushed face clashed with his robin’s egg blue robes, and I blanched at the realization.

This was the Ice god, I knew it deep down in my gut, even though I'd never seen his likeness in my life. And for some reason, just the sight of him brought on a fresh wave of tears to my eyes. He floated before me for longer than possible, longer than real, before I distantly remembered he was blessed with all the elements. Yifan's power: Flight, my brain supplied for me, even as the god scowled at me.

"Siwon!" The call came again and Leeteuk appeared in the bottom of the soul patch just as suddenly as his god had. "Don't do this!"

As if he'd waited for Leeteuk to catch up, Siwon surged forward towards me, towards the edge of the plank I was standing on. Numbly I threw my hands up to shield myself, thinking he was going to attack, but instead, I felt the bone-chilling sensation of his spirit ghosting right through mine. It sucked the breath from my lungs and sent pins and needles down my arms and legs. My defense dropped limply as the afterglow of him danced through my soul, drowning me on my own air. 

I dropped to my knees when my legs would no longer support me, watching hazily as Leeteuk scrambled out of the pit after, never too far behind but never fast enough to catch up.

"You betrayed me!" A voice boomed, bouncing off the angles of the walls, and a shudder wracked my body at the anger.

"Please!"

 

I hated crying. After Chanyeol had fished me out of the pond as a child, Kyulkyung had sobbed on me for hours, clinging to my arms tangling her tiny fingers in my hair. When I complained, the abbots told me that I should let her have her coping, that she'd almost lost her best friend. So I let her cry on me until she fell asleep in my lap. I don't know why it made me so uncomfortable. Perhaps it was the embarrassment of it, the vulnerability. I'd never wanted to seem weak or exposed in any sort of way. 

Plus crying was just so...exhausting.

My eyelids drooped despite the loud beginnings of an argument behind me, and I wanted so badly to sleep, to curl up in my bed where I knew Kyulkyung was and drift off until sunrise. Maybe if I slept for long enough, everything would go back to normal. We could all pretend that none of this was real, that none of this had happened. 

But no matter how much I wanted to run, there was an irresistible pull in my gut to look back, to watch, to see.

The truth, Spitfire.

You came here for the truth.

 

~

 

Jeno seriously had one freaking job. One job that Nayeon knew immediately when he’d failed about because she could hear the storm of a god stomp down the hall towards her. Keep Lay distracted until they got back. Was that really so hard? 

The Spitfire hadn’t said anything in a really long time, and there hadn’t been a slump or a thump, so Nayeon didn’t think she was dead yet. There was the distinct possibility that some other crazy shit had happened. Maybe the orb was a soul path. Maybe she was all the way to the flight temple by now, Nayeon had no clue. All she knew was that she had to keep the very angry, very powerful god from going into the chamber. 

Lay rounded the corner and then halted, a flustered Jeno hot on his heels. The god and the Keeper squared off on opposite sides of the hallway, and for the briefest of moments, Nayeon remembered what it felt like to be afraid of something. 

It wasn’t big and it had no bite, not like the dread she fostered as a child. No, this was the kind of fear that sparks right in the bottom of your heart, the type that you know isn’t going to slow you down. It’s a defense mechanism easily overridden. 

In short, Nayeon was just afraid to die…

But it wasn’t going to stop her. 

“Step away from that door, Ice Keeper!” Lay demanded, but Nayeon didn’t budge. 

“Oh screw your head on straight, ya dumb deity.” She fired back, earning a squeak from Jeno of all people. 

“This is insubordination!” He yelled and then started forward, his aura bouncing off the walls in an attempt to suffocate her. But there was no one’s ego bigger than hers, and she slid a leg back into a stance. 

“This is justice!” 

She lifted and slammed her foot into the ground, focusing deep into the core of the mountain. In response, the earth directly in front of the door shot up, all the way to the ceiling, closing off the entrance. 

She was smug for all of two seconds before Lay was before her, seething...just not with the expression she expected. Nayeon was used to people being angry with her, jealous of her, prejudiced against her. She was not however used to someone being disappointed in her. After her botched confession in the healing temple and Minseok banishing her, she’d wandered that mountain for hours, recoiling with herself. She felt disgusting and disgusted all at the same time and couldn’t decide which was worse. Was she mad at him for rejecting her, mad at the universe for making it impossible, or was she mad at the Spitfire for showing up and stealing his attention. If she was being honest, she had really only been mad at herself for acting like a child, and the look on her god’ face was really what had sealed the deal. 

He’d been disappointed in her. Not necessarily for falling or for even telling him, but for letting it change who she was. She vowed to the oldest evergreen tree she could find that it would never happen again. That no matter what, she would not let the darkness corrupt her. 

 

This shit was happening too fast for those new promises to hold. Lay looked more afraid than mad, and he didn’t even take a swipe at her like she thought he would. She assumed he couldn’t get through her earth, that the healing god was nothing more than a glorified shaman…

She was wrong again. 

He didn’t waste any time trying to get through her, just shoved past where she let him. He planted one palm on the rock and she thought he was assessing, deciding on his next course of action. But before she could prepare a jab, or maybe a prayer, Lay muttered something under his breath and the whole wall that she’d summoned tore itself down, piece by piece. 

“What?!” She balked, but Jeno pulled her back, saving her from a stray rock from the fractured barricade. 

“This is why I should have been the one to go in with her!” He snapped, but there was nothing either of them could do before Lay shoved both doors open and they managed to glimpse what was happening inside. 

It was nothing special, a little unfulfilling as far as revelations go. The Spitfire was sitting in the middle of the room, and framing her face was the golden spirit orb of Luhan. She seemed to be caressing its incorporeal body, like a lover stroking your face. 

Lay sank to his knees at the sight, and Nayeon felt the pain of his sob that wracked his body. 

“Gege…” He whimpered, and that was the last she saw before Jeno pulled her back through a portal and closed the scene.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should plan and write your stories out _before_ you post them, that way you can avoid falling into a massive plot hole and panic while trying to get yourself out of it.

_They fought with fire._

_Even if my eyes hadn't been swimming in my head, I would have found it dreamlike, a reverie. They were dancing together in a symphony of fury and glow, and there was no way I could tear my eyes away._

_Siwon was an aggressive opponent, his hands alight with flames, punching and shooting at his keeper with a fierce anguish, while Leeteuk, who was shorter, arabesqued around the assault, an equally tormented expression on his face. I felt his desperation in my soul, even when I could not stand, even when Siwon landed a hit on his keeper's body, scorching the fabric of his robes and blackening the skin underneath. All three of us cried out from the pain and I caught myself babbling, pleading with Siwon to stop this. Whatever was happening, we could fix it. We could go back home, we could get back in bed, we could be together. We didn't have to fight! We--_

 

_These words weren't mine either. They were two-toned from spilling out of Leeteuk's mouth as well. We were in sync in our despair, though I still didn't understand why it was now my burden as well._

_The two men blazed with fire and danced in and out of each other's space, trying to hurt, trying to plead, trying to convince, trying to defeat, and I was helpless to do anything but watch...until we finally met our climax._

 

_From my place on the lip of the soul patch, I heard and saw the doors to the library being thrown open. Luhan was there, standing behind a massive book, it's pages so thick their height reached his knees, his hands clasped together like he was praying. Beside him was another man in forest green robes, with eyes sharp enough to cut glass. His aura was familiar to me and if that wasn't enough, he held his arms out over the book, swirls of green characters flushed with energy spiraling out like tendrils of watercolor. It had to be Tao. Between the two of them, a little further back stood another man that was taller than all of us, clad in sleek grey robes that differed from anyone else’s. His demeanor was calm, but by the tension in his limbs, I could tell he was ready to jump in if need be. It was the grey that gave it away; another non elemental deity, Yifan._

_Lastly, behind the three gods seemed to be the entirety of the Mind temple, keepers clad in their mustard robes, hands clasped and muttering. Together their mouths were moving and I could hear the ancient song of chanting filling the room with a pressure of foretaste._

_Siwon didn't notice the intrusion, too busy trying to destroy his own keeper. The chanting grew and grew until there was a constant hum in the air and it couldn't be ignored any longer. I watched in stricken horror as Luhan's eyes rolled back into his head and he stretched out his hands over the book to match Tao. Yifan reached up and grabbed a shoulder of both of them, seemingly to keep them on their feet while they channeled their powers._

_The characters etched into the pages began to glow, deep darkness gleamed from under the ink, shining brightly under the firelight. They then started to lift from the page, a long rope of powerful words coiling up into the air as if they were alive, climbing higher and higher until they were a string of wisdom and its argument swayed in the air like a snake's head. It slithered over the edges of the binding and down to the ground, slinking through the dirt and cracks of the tile, reaching for the two men who were still dancing to their own song of desperate sadness._

_I realized I was holding my breath only when my lungs screamed for air, and even then I only hiccupped out of necessity, trying to make myself as small as I felt--as Leeteuk felt--on the inside._

_The thread of spells slithered closer to the fighting men, and the gods of the Mind and Time temple chanted faster and faster. There was a pulse in the air, like a drum beat, swelling and throbbing in the back of my head, driving the beat of my heart until--_

 

_Siwon hammered his foot down on the spell without looking back, like you would do to the head of a snake, and the words writhed under the pressure. Luhan chanted louder, almost shouted, and Tao slammed his palms down on the blank pages of the book, eyes slicing into Siwon. In response, the body of the rope lifted up and slung itself around Siwon's ankle. It coiled against the lip of his boot, searching for any weakness to get at his skin, where somehow I knew it would embed itself._

_Siwon thrashed against the tight hold of the words, shoving Leeteuk away before blasting at the rope with his fire. It did nothing to the spell, only encouraged it's climbing up his leg. When that didn't stop it, Siwon shifted his gaze to the library and I wanted to look away._

_This had to be it, I realized in utter horror: how the books and scrolls and bodies had been scorched beyond recognition, beyond excavation. Siwon had used my alignment, my fire, to destroy this temple, and somehow in the process, break my heart._

 

_My body was stiff with some sort of fatigue, but I registered the prime of my muscles. No matter if it was a memory or reality, I couldn’t sit by and do nothing. Those keepers were innocents, those gods were faultless, Leeteuk was distraught. I could make Siwon see reason. I don’t know why I thought that, but I did and I wasted no effort on second guessing myself. My legs vaulted me from the lip of the soul patch faster than I’d ever moved in my life, as I threw myself into the space between the confused god and the library._

_He wouldn’t hurt me. He wouldn’t!_

_I knew nothing of this world of illusions, not the rules or the flow. So when time started to slow, I couldn’t understand. Mid-stride, feet pounding the pavement, I raced against gravity to put myself between the parties...and I wasn’t the only one. Leeteuk was at my side before I could blink and we skidded to a stop in nearly the same place--_

_No. The same place._

_I felt the ghost of his spirit tangle with mine, but unlike the intrusion that Siwon had propelled me through, Leeteuk’s soul engulfed me with a sense of intimacy, of familiarity. His feet were my feet, his arms outstretched to the god were my arms, and the cry on the tip of his tongue came from the bottom of my heart. We were one and the same. I could feel his sorrow in my bones, a melancholy flavor that infected the whole room with bitterness._

_“Siwon!” Our dual voices called out. There were flashes of memory embedded in his name: of training in the ice temple together, scouring the mountain for furs, hunting together, of intimate moments between hearts, not celestial beings, and again the bright anguish of deception. Leeteuk was tearing himself apart with guilt for going behind his god’s back, but Siwon refused to see reason._

_He did pause though, and the moment of stillness was enough for our joined hearts to think that we had been right, that Siwon would never hurt us. We could get through to him, we had to get through to him. But as Siwon’s eyes ticked over the features of our face, we saw his expression harden, and he squared his shoulders at us in a way we knew intimately: as an opponent._

_He curled and uncurled his fists before jerking his right hand out, slipping his fingers through an astral portal he summoned. The angle of the tear was away from us so that we couldn’t see where he was reaching to, but the confusion didn’t last long. With a jerk back, he unsheathed a sword from another reality and gripped it between both hands._

_There was a tremor there, I swear I saw it. But I also recognized the sword and knew that the god--the man--that I had somehow come to love in a span of five minutes...was prepared to kill me for what he thought was right._

_Leeteuk and I didn’t move because where were we supposed to go? Save ourselves and let our god destroy himself and others, or hope that at the last second a miracle would occur? So we stayed rooted between the gods and watched Siwon white knuckle the hilt before letting out the most painful scream we’d ever heard, the blade igniting with a blue spark, and a lunge--_

 

* * *

 

 

"Let's take a break." Nayeon sighed, eyeing my silently shaking shoulders. I was trying to be too proud to cry in front of them, but that didn't stop the tremors that were teasing from my spine.

"We don't have time for--" Lay started to protest, but Nayeon nearly tore him a new one.

"Aren't you the god of fucking healing? Shouldn't you have a better bedside manner than this?" His fingers curled into a tight fist against the wood of the table, but he said nothing.

"No, no...he's right." I hissed through my teeth, squeezing my eyes closed to shut out the invading foreign memories. "We don't have time for me to be this fragile."

"Spitfire," Jeno finally spoke up from his perch at Kyulkyung's side. "You shouldn't push yourself. This isn't one of those times when you're supposed to be brave."

"If not now, then when?" I asked with a shrug, and that seemed to clam him up for a second.

"Still," He seemed to sigh but didn't follow it up with anything. Just still. Just concern despite the fact that we all knew the whole world was going up in smoke. Just a small prayer that he didn't dare voice.

There was an ache starting at the bottom of my spine, especially when I straightened and looked each of them in the eye.

"It was Siwon. Siwon killed the other gods." They adopted my seriousness, but it was Lay that couldn't seem to accept what I said.

"I can't believe that. As a pantheon, we believed Siwon perished with his fellows. We had no evidence to suggest otherwise."

"Except that Xiumin was reincarnated." Jeno squinted, threading his fingers through the fur of my bed. "Why only him? Didn't the gods find it suspicious?"

"We tend to not question the ways of the universe." Lay shrugged and Jeno made a discontented noise in the back of his throat.

"For deities, you sure do place an awful lot of blind faith in the strings." Nayeon quipped and it seemed to be exactly what Jeno had been thinking.

"Why did you think it was Chanyeol though?" I cut in, not wanting the bickering to escalate. Kyulkyung was still asleep and my brain was starting to feel like it was turning to mush.

"It would seem that I picked up where you let off." Lay's eyes dropped to the table and I got a distinct impression that he was--not necessarily jealous, but unhappy--that he'd been left out of whatever celestial truth this was. "When I touched Luhan's spirit, the vision that entered my mind was of a wall of fire, the screams of my brothers, and the ashes of the mind temple. I...I assumed." Shame slid over his face, and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from huffing.

Perhaps the biggest truth I'd uncovered in my short time at Tenebros was that these gods...despite the powers and the centuries-old wisdom, they were still so human. They could still be heartbroken and hurt, could still gripe, groan, and wax poetic.

"Why did you go there in the first place?" Nayeon grumbled, "It's been 900 years." The god's gaze dropped again, and I saw him sheepishly drag his fists over the top of his thighs.

And I got it. He had wanted to know so badly what happened to his brothers that he'd jumped headlong into an explanation despite the plot holes and consequences. He just...he must miss them so much, and I could relate. I too felt like I missed something so bad I could throw myself down whatever astral rip I needed to feel whole again. And what's worse is that pain...I don't think it belonged to me.

"Kai is not the only one who has indicators in place. Mine are just far more subtle." Lay shrugged again.

"Yeah!" Nayeon suddenly banged her fist on the table like she'd remembered something. "Let's talk about that! What the fuck even was that rock slide--"

"Lord Lay's gift is not so much healing as it is reconstruction," Jeno rolled his eyes, "and with it--deconstruction. You would know this if you ever picked up a scroll in your damn life."

"Bookworm, I will slap you so--"

"Oh my gods, shut up!" My forehead thumped against the table as I dropped my head, and they both ceased their bickering at the hollow sound. "Just tell us about the signal." I groaned without looking up again. They could be graced with the sight of my scalp until the pounding in my ears eased to a dull roar. Lay grumbled, most likely annoyed at our lack of propriety, but gave his explanation as calmly as he could.

"There was a shift a little over a week ago."

"And you just up and went without telling anyone where you were going?" I moaned, voice buried under the timber of the wood.

"I didn't want to spread false hope." He answered and scratched at his cheek timidly.

"Well, you sure as hell spread false panic." Nayeon snapped, and just by looking at their feet, I could tell she was really about to square up and fight a god.

"What was the shift?" Jeno led and I had never been more thankful for him.

"The composition felt...divine in a way, but I wasn't sure if it was just my imagination or..." Lay trailed off.

"You mean it was a god?" I asked.

"Possibly."

"Was it Chanyeol?"

Lay shook his head, "No."

"Was this right before the Hemic?" Nayeon asked, voice losing the signature snark and slipping into something a little more earnest and upsetting. "All the gods would have been on their mountains to welcome the new keepers. All except--" I tipped my face up to take in her expression. She was looking at Jeno with such an openly scared look that I sat all the way up.

"...Xiumin." I finished for her. Xiumin hadn't been on his mountain during the Hemic because he had participated in it.

"Wait, hold on." Jeno pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, like maybe if he didn't acknowledge it, the truth wouldn't sit so heavily right in front of us.

"But why would Minseok go to the mind temple?" Nayeon whined.

"I don't know..." Lay was very unhelpful in supplying.

"He had no idea you were missing though. I know that for certain." I slapped the table for emphasis. If I concentrated very hard (meaning barely at all), I could still feel the steam of the hot springs against my skin as Minseok held me close to his chest and demanded to know what I'd discovered at the healing temple. His surprise and his worry were true and genuine, I felt it. So this weird trail of thought, that he'd somehow lured Lay to the mind temple ahead of time...it didn't track.

"You said Siwon killed the gods." Lay smoothed his index finger over his bottom lip in thought, and I tensed involuntarily when he said the old god's name.

"Yeah?"

"But Siwon _was_ Xiumin." It felt like someone dunked my head under the water of that same hot spring as Lay's meaning sparked a memory in me. _'Xiumin is a title, bestowed upon the god of the Ice temple. I’m just the most recent Xiumin in a long line of Xiumins’.'_ "...and Minseok _is_ Xiumin."

" _Stop_." Nayeon barked and nearly jumped from her chair. "Stop right there. Don't say another goddamn word--"

"Let him speak." Jeno grabbed her wrist forcefully enough to make her wince, his eyes daggers on the healing god.

"Jeno!" She pulled free easily using her strength, but his stern expression kept her in place.

"I know even you have noticed how he's been acting. Something is going on with Minseok, and if this can help explain it then I'm going to listen." He directed his gaze to Lay and nodded like he was allowing the god to continue. "What would it mean if Minseok was the one in the Mind temple?" I looked back and forth between the two cautiously.

"He had no reason to be there." Lay offered but Nayeon ugly scoffed.

"Sure he did. Up until recently, we thought those temples were swarming with monsters. Maybe he went to go on a binger. It wouldn't be the first time." She crossed her arms tightly over her chest and avoided looking at either of the men in the room. Instead, her gaze fell on Kyulkyung, and I joined her there. I really wanted her to wake up, to be exactly who she'd always been, take my hands in her tiny fingers and tell me that everything was going to be fine, that it would go back to how it was. Instead, I could practically feel the green magic radiating from her, and shrank back.

"Do you think maybe he found Luhan instead?" Jeno asked suddenly, and something in my mind clicked from looking at Kyulkyung and thinking about the deities we'd discovered in the temple

"Oh my gods," I wailed and grabbed at my hair. "What if--" I hissed as the other three looked at me like I'd really lost it this time. "We found both Luhan and Tao in the Mind temple. What if Yifan and Siwon were there too? What if Xiumin--"

"Met Xiumin." Jeno finished, and my forehead met the table again.

 


	18. Chapter 18

It looked just like I remembered it, the training monastery. Stilted atop a cracked peak of a low mountain, whitewashed from age and use. I don't know why I bothered reminiscing. It had only been like, what? A week? Two? Nayeon, on the other hand, looked at the old temple like it was something humiliating.

"I haven't been here in years." She muttered under her breath as the three of us lurked through the underbrush, carefully to avoid being seen by any of the sentries who walked the boundaries. The sun was setting behind us, shielding us from wandering eyes--Jeno's idea--but we still hunkered down behind the old juniper trees whenever a twig snapped. This particular mission went against everything we stood for, after all.

We made it to the base of the white walls just as twilight passed, and I slid my hand along the familiar plaster. Years, I'd spent years here, shaping and preparing myself to serve the gods. And yet somehow, all of that had only set me on this path, carving my way back here with the intent to bring it all burning down.

"Keep moving." Jeno clicked under his tongue, not affected at all by the image of our first home. I wondered distantly how long it had actually been since he'd been a trainee. How long had he been by Xiumin's side? How long had he gone without seeing...

I took the lead when he faltered at the corner of the outer walls. He didn't know this place like I did, apparently. Probably too busy studying in the library to play hooky from sonnet class and race the earth keepers down to the lake at the bottom of the trail. 

We snuck along the western wall towards the gate on the far side of the grounds, away from the barracks and mess hall that was for sure buzzing with activity at this time of night. From there, I wasn't entirely sure where to go except towards the abbot's quarters at the top of the tower. Lay hadn't exactly been kept in the loop with that information when he sent us on our way.

"The only time it ever makes an appearance is during the Hemic," Jeno whispered over my shoulder around the border of the training temple. "So every other day of the year it must be kept under lock and key."

"Couldn't you have teleported us closer?" Nayeon grumbled at him, but Jeno scoffed at her lowly.

"And run the risk of being seen right off the bat? No way. How am I supposed to know if someone is standing in the exact place I open a portal?" In an effort to keep them from starting an all-out sass bash, I quickly distracted them with, 

"I'll start in the Abbot's quarters." Jeno seemed grateful for it while Nayeon just scowled.

"I guess I'll search the restricted  section of the library." He shrugged like it was the best idea he had under the circumstances.

"There's a restricted section?" Nayeon cocked an eyebrow and I suppressed a groan at the opening she’d left.

"Did you ever even go into the library?" Jeno’s lips twisted into a smirk and I let out a moan.

"Shut up!" Nayeon snapped at him, but I waved a hand in between them. We really didn’t have time for this.

"You should check the armory, Nayeon, just in case." Her mouth quirked to the side like she wasn’t happy about my ordering her around, but was going to go along with it anyway. If only because Lay told her to. 

Jeno crossed the open gates in a crouch, and we collectively held our breath, waiting for any indication that he’d been seen…But there was nothing but silence and the distant sounds of the mountain.

"In that case, where should we meet?"

"We'll come to you,” I whispered across the threshold, the night quickly shrouding him in darkness. “If it's not in the library, at least see what you can find about Leeteuk and Siwon."

"Right." He nodded and slipped through the gate without another word. I was about to follow but felt a small tug on my sleeve.

"Spitfire..." Nayeon’s voice was quiet, and I was constantly marveling at how with as much strength she possessed, she was able to make herself seem so small.

"Yeah?” I asked, part of me twitching because this was supposed to be a well-timed and executed plan, and we didn’t have the minutes to spare for a pep talk; and the other part of me wanting to plant my ass on the ground and let Nayeon spill whatever it was that she wanted to spill.

"I don't...I don't like this place.” She refused to meet my eye, instead staring at her knees tucked up under her, “Let's get out of here fast, yeah?" A flame ignited in my soul, a desperate need to know why the hell she wouldn’t like this place, this place that was literally my home. I had very few bad memories of the training monastery, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think that everyone lived the same life. I was absolutely going to ask her, and she was going to tell me, even if I had to beat it out of her...or she beat me in the process. That’d be fine too.

But for now, I just nodded.

"Yeah."

 

◈◈◈◈

 

_ “It’s unheard of!” Lay exclaimed as Jeno, Nayeon, and I tripped over each other chasing after him through the tunnels of the ice temple. “A god meeting their former self. It’s—it’s profane!” _

_ “You say that like it’s happened before, but only Xiumin has ever been reincarnated on record,” Jeno argued.  _

_ “What happened to the previous Xiumin? The one from two hundred years ago? What about his fire keeper?” I asked at the same time that I was trying to hide my panting. _

_ “His name was Wooshik,” Lay took a sharp turn towards the throne room, “and he was the Ice god for nearly 400 years. I can’t recall the name of his keeper.” I tried to do the math in my head: 900 years ago Siwon killed Leeteuk, Minseok had been Xiumin for 200ish years, Wooshik for 400 before that...a headache snapped at the back of my eye as Nayeon asked, _

_ “What happened to him?” _

_ “He...there was an accident.” Lay shoved the doors to the throne room open only to be met with an empty chamber. We’d been hoping to find Minseok but he was nowhere to be found.  _

_ “Gods have accidents?” Nayeon snorted, and Lay glowered at her. The two of them were never going to get along. _

_ “What kind of accident?” Jeno placated, strolling forward to be in the line of sight with the god in case he charged off somewhere else. _

_ “His fire keeper became unstable and...well, she destroyed the mountain.” He glanced around, probably seeing memories of the previous temple. I remembered the first time I’d ever felt my power, trying hard to sear it’s way out and destroy Nayeon. Minseok said I’d burst into flames, and if he hadn’t been there to save me...would the same thing have happened? _

_ “I think I remember a story about that,” Nayeon bit her lip, glancing at me like she was recalling the same memory. “Kyungsoo rebuilt the temple as a gift for the new Xiumin.” Lay nodded. _

_ We stalled out for a long moment as we contemplated what to do. Minseok was the one with answers, but he’d disappeared. A small part of me was a little disappointed that he never came to check on me, I’d nearly died with him after all. But the other part was denying the gut feeling that was climbing it’s way up my windpipe.  _

 

_ “There’s a pattern here. Does no one else see it?” Jeno looked at each of us, daring us to contradict him. _

_ “What pattern?” I gulped, and his face darkened. _

_ “All ice gods die with their fire keepers.” The words stabbed into my skin like needles. “I’m assuming the Xiumin before him died like that as well?” Jeno looked to Lay for confirmation, but it wasn’t necessary. They all knew it was true.  _

 

_ “But that’s ridiculous!” I sputtered anyway, “I would never hurt Minseok!” I saw Nayeon openly flinch at the possibility, and I felt just about the same. There was no way... _

_ “Not on purpose.” Jeno crossed his arms and stared at his feet, thinking hard, the kind of posture he got when he slunk off into his head.  _

_ “Not ever!” I snapped, and Nayeon took half a step between the two of us, just in case I felt the need to prove my point.  _

_ “Do you think Wooshik’s fire keeper meant to hurt him?” Jeno asked, and I opened my mouth to retort, but no words came out. I searched my whole head for answers, but he’d pinned me in just one question.  _

_ “So you’re telling me that I...that I, what? I’m meant to kill him?” I growled, taking a huge step away just in case I really did punch him, “Like all the fire keepers before me? No. No!”  _

_ “If it’s fate, it’s fate!” Jeno snapped, but I whirled on him.  _

_ “Fuck fate! I won’t do it! I’d rather throw myself into the caldera than go anywhere near him if it means I could--” _

_ “You’re the first fire keeper in years.” Nayeon sighed, pulling at the ends of her hair, “I still don't understand why he thought he needed you.”  _

_ “Perhaps he was compelled,” Lay added, and the three of us turned to him.  _

_ “Compelled how?” Nayeon asked. Lay chewed on his upper lip and shot me a curious glance. _

_ “If fate truly is the cause of the demise of Ice gods... then maybe it was the threads. Minseok felt he needed a fire keeper, he just didn't’ know why.” An image of the bright strings of fate flashed before my eyes. I remembered plucking Luhan’s golden spirit and feeling the warmth bask on my face. I’d never had an intimate relationship with the spiritual side of my upbringing, but Minseok was a god. He must be more intuned than me, than any keeper. If the universe urged him to find a fire keeper, he would have been obligated to obey.  _

_ “That doesn’t sound like fate,” Nayeon shook her head, “that sounds like...some sort of curse.” She looked to Jeno, and he opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again with a hum.  _

_ “Wait,” I suddenly thought, “Luhan and Tao...the spell they were casting. It had to be something strong enough to stop Siwon.” _

_ “Strong enough to stop all Xiumins.” Jeno dawned. “A loop of some kind, connected to Xiumin’s soul through every reincarnation.” _

_ “And Leeteuk was in the crossfire when it was cast.” I snapped my fingers and then blanched at the realization. Leeteuk, me, us, my ancestor...we were just caught in the crossfire.  _

_ “Their souls were intertwined.” Lay nodded along, eyes getting bigger and bigger as we continued. _

_ “So every ice god is destined to die with their fire keeper when the curse is met,” Jeno concluded. _

_ “But why now?” Nayeon stepped in, “Minseok hasn’t been any different.” _

_ “If Minseok is the one who led Lay to the Mind Temple, I’d say that’s different.” _

_ “How can we save him?” I cut in, not caring about anything else, “How do we keep me from killing him?” _

_ We all stopped again, wracking our brains for answers, but nothing was certain. Everything we assume could be completely wrong. With no base, how were we supposed to understand? And where the hell was Minseok when we needed him! _

_ “I might have an idea…” Lay swallowed, but his face was grave, and I already didn’t like it.  _

  
  


◈◈◈◈

 

It was easier to get around once the three of us had parted ways. Slinking around the training temple was already second nature to me, and I fell back into step with the rhythm of life there easily. Distantly, I heard the clamor of the trainees in the mess hall, knowing that it was early in the evening and that the meal had only just begun. That gave us just under an hour to find what we were looking for and to get out.

 

But that was easier said than done. Voices up ahead of me had me ducking into a side hall, hiding back in the shadows cast by the torches on the walls. Two keepers passed, conversing about their training schedules, not noticing me and going about their business. When they were far enough gone, I poked my head out and checked the hall. When the coast was clear, I continued tiptoeing my way up floor by floor until I came to a spiral set of stairs that led to the abbots and keepers quarters. They of course never bunked with the trainees, and the abbots quarters were even more restricted the higher up the tower went. I’d never been up there, but I figured if it was going to be hidden anywhere, it would be there, at the tip-top of the tower in the chamber of the high abbot. A small exhausted part of my brain was very much done with spiral stairs after the healing temple, but what could you do? With a quick glance to either side, I attacked the steps two at a time, climbing higher than I ever had before.

 

There were very few times a keeper in training would ever be summoned up from the lower levels. Times like extreme punishment, or maybe exuberant praise, but I'd never encountered either of those. Don't get me wrong, I always considered myself the best in my generation, but I assume the Abbots caught onto my mischievous streak the year I hid all the swords in the whole compound and replaced them with umbrellas. Kyulkyung had laughed, the head Weapons master had not. I passed his room as I climbed up and up and up until I came to the very top, the last door. It was old and wooden but looked study with its age, and it gave easily when I pushed it open. I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't a room that looked exactly like my own back at Tenebros--sparse. A small bed and wardrobe, plus a cluttered desk under a little window were the only things in there, and I wanted to groan. There was no way it was in here.

The only thing that managed to catch my eye was another door on the opposite wall. It didn't make sense with what I knew of the layout of the tower. Looking back just to make sure the coast was clear, I tiptoed over to the other door and grabbed the wrought iron handle. It didn't budge as easily as the first, and I had to put my back into it. With a great shove, it swung open and nearly threw me out of the tower altogether. It was a door to nothing, just a little ledge into the open air. I stumbled back to keep myself from falling, bumping into the desk and cluttering the mess of papers even more. The wind from the gaping hole in the wall whipped in and took a few away before I could catch them while I waited for my heart to drop out of my throat. Why the hell did the Abbot have a door that led to nowhere? Swallowing down my shock, I stepped back over to the doorway and looked out into the night. You could see for miles up here, all the way to the next mountain if you squinted--

"I was wondering if it would be you." A voice said, and I jumped out of my skin. Spinning around, I was caught dead to rights by the Head Abbot of the training monastery.

"A-Abbot!" I stuttered, frantically looking around for something to excuse why I was there. Her gaze held steady on me like she was waiting for me to flounder. "I was--"

"It's not here." She cut me off coolly, tucking her hands behind her back like she used to do when I knew I was in for a lecture.

"What isn't?" I tried and failed to pull off, but her eyes were shrewd and she never let me get away with anything.

"The sword." She shrugged, and I froze. "That is what you're looking for, isn't it?" In the back of my mind, I wondered if maybe Nayeon or Jeno had been caught, but they never would have given up our quest so easily. The only reasonable conclusion was that the woman who wielded the sword my whole life would know about its true power.

"Where is it?" I dropped all pretense because 1) I was never good with it, to begin with, and 2) the head abbot was much better at this than me on any given day.

"The sword is with Yifan." She supplied easily, rounding the room to sit at the messy desk by the gaping hole in the wall. The night breeze played with her long hair that was still jet black, even with her age.

"Yifan?" I squinted, "The flight god?"

"One would think after so many years, I would be used to keepers rolling their eyes at his name." She sighed heavily, with a burden of age I didn't understand. "Yifan was so much more than just the god of flight. You have no idea what he sacrificed..." She trailed off, her eyes casting down over the papers; training schedules, dossiers, supply arrangements. She was a staple at this temple and in this range, but even though I'd known her all my 20 years, she never seemed as old as she did right then.

"You speak as if you knew him," I mumbled, sitting as unobtrusively on the bed as I could.

"How could that be, keeper?" Her voice laced with a sarcasm that I was definitely not used to, "Yifan perished more than 900 years ago."

"Did he?" I couldn't stop myself from lashing back, because of all the things she taught me, rancor was not one of them (pretty sure Jeno rounded out that education). "You neglected to teach me so many things, abbot. I'm starting to wonder if I know anything at all." A look of annoyance flashed across her face before it smoothed out expertly. A lifetime of dealing with children had probably made her immune to snide remarks.

"So you are the one..." She said instead, and I went along with her meaning.

"I am the fire keeper of Tenebros temple, yes."

"And you're here to destroy your master?" She cocked an eyebrow at me but I quickly shook my head.

"No. I'm here to save him."

 

"...900 years ago, Lord Siwon of the Ice temple rebelled against the other gods." She stood from the chair and went to rest her hand against the doorframe to the sky. Her eyes were distant as she started to recount the history she'd neglected to teach me.

"I know that." I murmured. An entire fever dream induced nightmare had revealed that tidbit to me.

"Yes, but do you know why?"

"Leeteuk betrayed him, went behind his back and told Luhan what he was doing." A tremor founds its way into my voice and I scowled at its treachery. Whenever I spoke about Leeteuk, there was always this jolt in my chest, my heart. Emotions that I couldn't place flooded my system like blood in my veins and made me queasy.

"Be wary, keeper." The abbot said when she finally turned back to look at me. "Those are not your feelings." I really wanted to ask her how she knew, how she could possibly understand what was going on in my soul, why she hadn't bothered to tell me any of this before she sent me to that freezing mountain in the north. But I stayed silent. "What had Siwon been doing that caused Luhan to worry?" She asked when I didn't say anything more.

"I...I didn't see." I glanced down at my lap, not wanting to think about the visions Luhan and engulfed me in.

"Siwon was convinced that the non-elemental gods were meddling in things they were not meant to." She stated, and I looked back up at her with a start.

"Non-elemental? Like Baekhyun, Kai, Tao, Yixing, Yifan, Luhan, and--" I listed off the gods and slowly grew to the realization, but she cut me off before I could say it.

"And he himself as well, yes. Siwon was so wrapped up in the darkness of his thoughts and power that he started to recruit his own keepers into his coup. Into his own suicide mission." I gaped at her.

"Why would he think that?"

"Far be it for me to assume the mind of a god," She rattled off before turning from the door and coming to sit beside me on the bed.

"So that's why Leeteuk went to Luhan," I recalled the devastation sitting fat on Leeteuk's shoulders as he curled in Luhan's study chair.

"The young fire keeper knew he would never be able to convince his master who was so blinded by his conviction. So they devised a plan." She picked at a piece of lint on her robes like this was an everyday conversation and not an entire hidden history.

"To kill him?" I asked, but she shook her head.

"No, keeper. To bind him. But during the ritual, Siwon attacked and defeated Luhan and Tao with the help of the Blade of Moirai." The Sword. We had finally come full circle.

"So it's true, a weapon that can kill a god. But Minseok said--" It felt like a lifetime ago, but I could still remember the way the fire had faced across his face when he told me that the sword didn't cut his hand when the abbot ran it through his palms. It's what marked him as the next god of the ice temple.

"Xiumin has not told you a single grain of truth since you were chosen for his temple." The abbot said sharply. It sat so wrong with me that I couldn't help but jump to my feet and round on her with a ferocity I usually reserved for Nayeon.

"That's not true!" I practically shouted, "In fact, Minseok is the only one who bothered to tell me anything!”

“You need to understand your own distinction. Xiumin is a liar, Minseok is a pawn.”

“And you are the one who kept this secret! We could have avoided 900 years of bloodshed if you just--"

"The business of the gods is not mine the meddle in. I did what was asked of me by my master." She waved away my ire easily, as she had for the last 20 years and I tried desperately to keep it, to bottle it in case of a fight, but the fire dimmed to a simmer. She wasn't wrong. It was annoying, but she wasn't wrong. And then I got to thinking about her master. Abbots were keepers who had served their gods long enough to choose whether they wanted to train the next generation or remain on their mountains. That's why the abbots could tell us stories of their different gods and fill our hearts with the hope of our chosen. But the head abbot had never given any indication of which god she had served.

"Your master...you've never worn any colors other than those of the training monastery. We all used to speculate and put bets which mountain your served on, but nobody ever figured it out. Is it possible..." I trailed off, letting the pieces fall where they may. At this point, nothing was out of the realm of possibility.

The head abbot merely looked at me, waiting for me to come to my own conclusions. "Choose your next words wisely." Was all she said.

"You said that only Tao and Luhan were defeated by Siwon. That means...that means Yifan--" Quick as a flash, the abbot bent and reached under her bed and pulled out the exact sword I was looking for. She leveled the tip with my throat, stopping the words on my tongue. It was all in the blink of an eye, and I marveled at how fast she was, not even for her age, but in general. We stared at each other for a long moment before she touched the sharp tip to the bottom of my chin.

"The sword used during the Hemic is not the true Blade of Moirai." The steel left my skin with a prick and she swung it down until it was no longer threatening my life. "That is why it does not cut the new gods. The real sword is hidden away, in a place that even I do not know."  We gazed down at the shiny sword together, and I wanted to punch myself in the face that I didn't think to look under the bed. But in my defense, why would I have ever looked under there? A god-killing weapon hidden under the bed?

This was a copy though, a fake.

"I need the real sword, Abbot." My whole body was tense involuntarily, knowing the abbot would never attack me, but she'd just put a knife to my jugular.

"Yifan's last promise to me was that when the time was right, the sword would appear as long as I called its name." She swung the sword again as if she were attacking invisible enemies, a fire burning in her eyes.

"Well, what's the name?" I asked, and she stopped her assault to stare at the blade again. Just as passionate as it had been, the flame in her spirit winked out as she said,

"I do not know."

 

"What do you mean you don't know? This is literally the only thing I came here for!" I cried, "You have to know! If you don't, what am I supposed to do?"

"You were once my brightest keeper...even if you were a holy terror." She muttered as she carelessly dropped the fake sword on her bed, "If anyone can find the sword's name, it's you."

"Abbot, I don't have time for this." I all but whined, compliment and insult aside, "They're going to execute Chanyeol in a matter of hours." At least that's what Lay had said.

"Then perhaps you should get out of my room and fetch your friends." She snipped and went back to sit at her desk. She picked up a quill and parchment and started to scribble something down, letting me know that this conversation was over. But I wasn't done.

She already knew that my companions were in the monastery somehow, so what harm would there be in asking one more question.

"Abbot, why does Nayeon hate this place?" Her hand stilled, but she didn't turn around to face me.

"Is this really the time for that?" She asked harshly, but I could hear just a hint of sadness under her tone.

"I will make time for her." The conviction in my voice surprised even me, but never in a million years would I tell Nayeon that.

"Her story is not mine to tell." Was all she said before she started writing again.

I took the dismissal, knowing I wouldn't get anything else out of her. There was no time to pry either, she'd been right about that. Without the sword, how were we ever going to free Minseok and save Chanyeol? I chewed on my bottom lip but stopped just past her door.

"Abbot," She said, and she made a noncommittal sound to tell me she was listening, "When this is all over abbot, I'm going to come back and I'm going to tell everyone the truth. No more of this bullshit." I didn't look back to see her reaction, but after a moment I heard her suck in a sharp breath.

"I've been waiting for someone to do that for 900 years."

I started down the stairs, but only got a few steps before I heard her voice call from the tower. "Oh, and Spitfire? My name is Fei."


End file.
